On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the

Communist Movement: Letters to the Communist

Party of Nepal (Maoist) from the RevolutionaryCommunist Party, USA, 2005-2008 (With a Replyfrom the CPN(M), 2006)Revolutionary Communist Party, USAJanuary 29, 2009 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to theCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist)November 4, 2008 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to theCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist)March, 2008 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to the CommunistParty of Nepal (Maoist)October 2005 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to the CommunistParty of Nepal (Maoist)

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Appendices to October 2005 Letter from the RCP,USA to the CPN(M)

The Creative Development of MLM, Not of Revisionism, excerpt from a talk by BobAvakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.Some Further Thinking on: The Socialist State as a New Kind of State, excerpt from atalk given by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, to a groupof Party members and supporters in 2005.

Article from Revolution #160, March 28, 2009.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement: Letters to theCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist) from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA,2005-2008 (With a Reply from the CPN(M), 2006),Editors Note:These letters are as they originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) publications.

Editors Note:This letter is as it originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) publications.

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

January 29, 2009Dear Comrades,As you know we have been following the developments in your country and within your partywith great concern and interest. During the long years of the Peoples War we consistentlyupheld and propagated your struggle within the revolutionary movement and among the massesof people in our country, and participated in doing so on an international level. We did sowholeheartedly, convinced that the struggle in Nepal was a blow not only against thereactionary ruling classes of Nepal itself, but could become an advanced outpost of struggleagainst the world imperialist system and that, under the leadership of a genuine communistvanguard party, this revolution had the basis not only for liberating Nepal but to contribute to thespread of revolutionary communism in the region and the world.We are writing this letter to inform you that we have come to the conclusion that it is nownecessary to open up to the public the struggle that we have been waging with you for severalyears now over key questions of communist principle and the differences that have now sharplyemerged.Ever since October 2005 we have been increasingly alarmed at the developments of line thatyour party has taken. Proceeding from what is our understanding of proletarianinternationalism, we have made many efforts to carry out struggle over the crucial questions ofideological and political line involved. In particular we have written three major letters at keyjunctures presenting in a frank manner our understanding of the matters of principle that haveemerged in relation to the development of the revolution in your country; we have not addressedthese on the level of specific tactical measures that you have taken at different junctures, butwith regard to the overall ideological and political line that has been guiding the practice of yourpartyand which are now pushing the revolution into the abyss.We wrote one letter in October 2005, a second one on March 19, 2008 and a third on November4, 2008. Of these three letters, you chose to respond only to the first; we are very disappointedand dismayed that you did not consider that the later two letters of 2008 even merited a response.The questions that we and others have raised clearly focus on questions that need to be

January 2009 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

discussed within RIM and the international communist movement and are of concern to all whowant to do away with imperialism and reaction, and work toward a communist future.It should be obvious why the change in the leading political and ideological orientation of yourparty and the policies adopted have caused a great deal of questioning and confusion amongfriends of the Nepal revolution in our country and elsewhere. Despite the concerns of sectionsof the masses and repeated requests to know our opinion, we have been very careful to avoidopen criticism of your party in our press and in other public forums up until now. We have feltthat this was the correct approach for us to take because you had made clear to us yourpreference that this struggle not take place in the public arena and because it was our sincerehope that keeping this struggle internal to the ranks of our respective parties and the parties andorganizations of our movement would create the most favorable conditions for your party, andespecially its leadership, to engage in serious study, debate and struggle over the questions thatwe and other comrades in the international movement have been raising.We are forced to conclude that this policy of keeping our struggle internal is no longerappropriate under the present circumstances. When the party leadership has shown no interest inpursuing struggle over cardinal questions of ideological and political line and where the leadingline and policies of the party itself are accelerating in the wrong direction, to keep silent wouldobjectively represent acquiescence in this very path. On the contrary, the circumstances requirea vigorous public discussion of the central ideological and political questions involved.We do not take this decision with joy of heart but rather out of the deepest concern for the futureof the revolution in Nepal and its implications for the proletarian revolutionary struggleinternationally.Just as we had decided that it is now correct to take this course of action, an article written byRoshan Kissoon appeared in your English language journal Red Star (#21) in which there is anopen repudiation of the whole of Marxism, beginning with Marx himself, an open rejection ofthe whole experience of the proletarian revolution up to this point, and an open proclamation thatthe revolution in Nepal can do no more than build a modern capitalist state, leaving the questionof the struggle for socialism and communism to future generations.As part of the anti-communist diatribe in Red Star #21, Kissoon launches a vicious andunprincipled attack and personal slander on the leader of our party, Chairman Bob Avakian,which is reprehensible and unacceptable. We strongly protest the completely anti-communistcontent of this article. To publish such an article in a journal that is seen all over the world as avehicle for dissemination of your line and views constitutes promoting views that are completelyin opposition to the goals and methods of communists that should be upheld by the internationalcommunist movement.

January 2009 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

We will proceed with publishing the three major letters mentioned above along with the onlyresponse we have received from you, unless we hear from you by February 15, 2009 with acompelling reason for not doing so.Our proletarian internationalist greetings,Central CommitteeRevolutionary Communist Party, USA

January 2009 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

Editors Note:This letter is as it originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) publications.4 November 2008Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USATo the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and all Parties and Organizations of RIMDear Comrades,On March 19, 2008, our Party sent a circular letter to the comrades of the Communist Party ofNepal (Maoist) as well as to the other parties and organizations of RIM expressing our deepestconcern over the political and ideological orientation of the CPN(M) and the basic path it hasbeen following for the last three years. The central point in that letter was our belief that despitethe great struggle and sacrifices of the ten years of People's War and its tremendousachievements, the state system being established and consolidated in Nepal is not newdemocracy, the particular form of the dictatorship of the proletariat appropriate in countries likeNepal, but rather a bourgeois state, a federal democratic republic which will preserve andenforce the existing capitalist and semi-feudal relations of production prevalent in Nepal.The Peoples Liberation Army is to be destroyed through integration into the reactionary statearmy and/or dissolved by other means, land distributed by the revolution to the peasantry is to bereturned to previous owners, Western imperialist powers and reactionary states such as Chinaand India are being hailed as great friends of the Nepalese people, and astounding theoreticalpropositions are being put forward such as the joint dictatorship of the proletariat and thebourgeoisie1. Instead of arguing for a program of carrying forward the revolution, CPN(M)leaders and government officials have loudly advocated positions and policies that so flagrantlygo against the principles of proletarian revolution and the interests of the masses in Nepal andaround the world that any genuine communist is shocked, saddened and angry to hear them onthe lips of comrades of our Movement.Yes, we have heard that the assurances from some that all of this is but a transitional state thatcan be transformed into a genuine peoples stateor, sometimes we are told, it is but a cleverploy to deceive the enemy while preparations continue to bring the revolution to a victoriousconclusion. But in fact each step taken down this road is making it more difficult ideologically,politically, organizationally and militarily to get back on the revolutionary path. Today many1

See Red Star, Number 15, Fall of Koirala Dynasty.

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

more communists, in Nepal and elsewhere, are coming to recognize that the formation of thefederal democratic republic is not a stepping stone toward achieving the communistobjectives but a giant step backwards, away from revolution and away from the achievements ofthe Peoples War, and a giant step toward firmly reconsolidating Nepals position in thereactionary world imperialist system.The Problem is the Line of the PartyIt is excellent that many comrades are now recoiling when they stare into the abyss into whichthe revolution in Nepal is falling. The question is to understand how things reached this pointand, most importantly, what is necessary to fundamentally reverse this course and save the fruitsof the revolution in Nepal that are being so rapidly destroyed. The current situation is noaccident, no mere excess in carrying out an otherwise correct policy. It is not just one more"maneuver to the right" that can be easily corrected by a following "maneuver to the left". Thecurrent display of class collaboration is a direct result of the ideological and political line thathas been leading the Party over the last period, particularly since the immediate goal of the Partywas defined as the establishment of the transitional state, that is, a bourgeois democraticrepublic.2The immediate task facing all communists who hold the revolution in Nepal dear is to repudiateand fight against the wrong line in the CPN(M). Once again we will quote the words of MaoTsetung: If ones line is incorrect, ones downfall is inevitable, even with the control of thecentral, local and army leadership. If ones line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier atfirst, there will be soldiers, and even if there is no political power, political power will be gained.This is borne out by the historical experience of our party and by that of the internationalcommunist movement since the time of Marx. The crux of the matter is line. This is anirrefutable truth.3Today the question of the future direction of Nepal is being battled out in the domain of politicalline and ideology. If a correct revolutionary communist line can triumph within the party, theenergy and aspirations of people that have been unleashed by the Peoples War can be harnessedand led, and there is a real possibility that nationwide victory can be won and the pathway2 A decisive turning point in this process was in October 2005 when a line struggle in the Party reached aculmination at the Central Committee meeting. One of the important subjects in that two-line struggle was whetheror not the revolution must pass through the stage of anti-monarchical struggle and the establishment of a bourgeoisdemocracy (transitional state). In typical eclectic fashion, this thesis was rejected theoretically by saying that sucha sub-stage was not an absolute requirement but at the same time this thesis was made the guiding line for thepractice of the party as a tactic, which opened the way to the series of agreements with the parliamentary partiesand effectively made the immediate goal of the revolution the formation of a bourgeois republic.3 From the 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, adopted August 28, 1973.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

opened to socialism. On the contrary, if the present line of the CPN(M) leadership is notrepudiated, this great opportunity for the people in Nepal and for the communist movement moregenerally will be lost. We are not in a position to speculate or propose specific tactical steps, andwe do not see that as the role that comrades in the international movement can or should beplaying. We must all focus our attention on major matters of ideological and political line andnot on secondary matters of tactics or so-called maneuvering. Most fundamentally this meansreaffirming, ideologically and in its political line and specific policies, that the revolution inNepal is seeking to establish socialist relations in the country as part of the whole world processby which the capitalist-imperialist world order will be overthrown and supplanted by socialismand ultimately communism. Yes, the revolution in Nepal must pass through the transition of newdemocracy, but the purpose of the new-democratic revolution is exactly a transition towardsocialism, and not toward an acceleration of capitalism in Nepal and its further integration intothe world imperialist system.4This essential pointthe need to maintain the goal and orientation of fighting for newdemocracy and not substituting the goal of classless, pure democracy (which can only meanbourgeois democracy, whether federal and proportional or not)was a major theme of ourOctober 2005 letter to the Party, which the CPN(M) leadership dismissed as merely being theABCs of Marxism with no importance for analyzing the specific questions of tactics andpolicy facing the Party. But these ABCs, or more correctly put, these basic truths of Marxism,confirmed in the course of generations of revolutionary struggle all over the world, remaincrucial to the success or failure of the revolution, and the rejection of these basic truths by theCPN(M) leadership is what is leading the revolution over the cliff.New Democracy and Socialism are Stepping Stones on the Road to CommunismNew democracy requires a joint dictatorship of the revolutionary classes under the leadership ofthe proletariat and its vanguard, that is to say, a specific form of the dictatorship of theproletariat appropriate to the stage of the democratic revolution. While the system of newdemocracy recognizes and protects the interests of the national bourgeoisie, it targets as anenemy the comprador and bureaucrat capitalist sector which is, after all, the dominant form ofcapitalism in Nepal. In its international policy, new democracy aligns itself with the masses ofpeople struggling against imperialism and reaction and opposes the world imperialist system.Economically, as Mao put it, new democracy opens the door to capitalism, but it opens thedoor to socialism even wider by quickly establishing state ownership over those sectorscontrolled by the imperialists, allied reactionary states and the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisieand feudal elements. In the countryside new democracy means the thorough and revolutionaryimplementation of land to the tiller by mobilizing and relying on the oppressed masses of the4

See Mao Tsetung on this subject, especially On New Democracy, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 339.

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

peasantry. Culturally, New democracy means mobilizing the masses and unleashing them tothoroughly uproot backward institutions such as caste discrimination, child marriage, theoppression of women, the oppression of nationalities and so forth. Indeed, to a large extent newdemocracy means completing on a nationwide level the revolutionary democratictransformations that the Party had begun in the base areas.In all of these aspects the new-democratic system represents something quite different frombourgeois democracy. Bourgeois democracy accepts the capitalist system in a given country andinternationally. It offers equal rights (especially the right to vote) to everyone within theframework of the existing ownership system and the existing relations of production. Bourgeoisdemocracy will always seek to demobilize the masses and oppose and repress the efforts of themasses to assert their own interests. And we know that in a country like Nepal, bourgeois rule,however democratic, inevitably involves a great degree of compromise with semi-feudalrelations, as is seen so clearly in neighboring India. The rule of (bourgeois) law so central tobourgeois democracy means that government officials become the agents and enforcers ofbourgeois law. Isnt this an important lesson of the Yadov affair, when comrade MatrikaYadov, the CPN(M) Minister of Land Reform and Management in the new government, resignedover his refusal to accept the use of state violence to evict the peasantry off of land that had beenredistributed to them by the revolution?5 This shows quite clearly how the government cannothelp but function as an agent of the reactionary production and social relations, and it is a goodillustration of Marxs point that the proletariat cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made statemachinery and wield it for its own purposes but must smash it and establish its own state.6Today when the choice before the Party and the masses is sharpening up as one between apeoples republic and a bourgeois republic (in the form of the federal democratic republic),it is essential for the communists themselves to be clear on the fundamental meaning of thesetwo, opposite, kinds of states. It is important to be vigilant as well that the very conception ofpeoples republic (or new-democratic republic) is not gutted and reduced to just a differentlabel on the bourgeois democratic republic. It is important to firmly grasp that the newdemocratic republic must be part of the world proletarian revolution and that it must serve as atransition to socialism and communism.This goal must not be left at the level of an empty declaration of faith. We should not forget thateven the most brazen capitalists in China still hide behind the banner of the Communist Party.Taking the socialist road requires understanding clearly what socialism and communism actuallymean. It is not about the perfection of democracy in a way detached from the class struggle.7 It5

See Red Star, Number 16.

Karl Marx, The Civil War in France.7In our October 2005 letter speaking to the New State article, we argued that the ideology of classless democracy(or pure democracy) corresponded to capitalism where goods must be exchanged according to equal value and6

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

is about achieving a society without class distinctions through the overcoming of the four allsMarx spoke about and which became popularized in the GPCR of China. Marx wrote that thecommunist revolution must aim at the elimination of: all classes and class distinctions generally,all the relations of production on which they rest, all the social relations corresponding to them,and all the ideas that result from these social relations.The vehicle for assuring this transition from one social epoch to another is the dictatorship of theproletariat. Only if state power is firmly in the hands of the proletariat at the leadership of analliance with the other revolutionary classes will it be possible to protect the interests of themasses, as we have seen in the entire course of the Peoples War. If state power is in the hands ofthe masses countrywide led by a vanguard party clear on its goal, the initial transformationscarried out in the base areas can be consolidated throughout the country and, most importantly,this state power can be used to begin the long and difficult but truly liberating process oftransforming the economic and social relations between people in the direction of socialism andcommunism.The fundamental issue at stake in the debate over the form of the state and the role of multipartydemocracy in Nepal today is actually about whether the dictatorship of the proletariat (at thestage of new democracy) will be established. Indeed, as the Chinese comrades pointed out duringthe epoch of Mao, all of the great struggles between Marxism and revisionism have been focusedon the question of establishing and persevering in the proletarian dictatorship, and this is the casein Nepal today.There are important and difficult questions concerning the form of peoples rule: What roleshould be allowed for competing political parties? How can the rights of the masses beguaranteed in deeds and not only in words? How can the revolution mobilize all positive factorsin society to advance? And yes, there have been serious errors in the history of the communistmovement in this regard, although our party does not accept the one-sided negation of theprevious experience of the communist movement that is trumpeted by the internationalbourgeoisie and, unfortunately, echoed by the leadership of the CPN(M). But one thing is quitecertain: it will be impossible to address the genuine questions correctly unless comradesunderstand the desirability and the possibility of achieving a wholly different type of society(socialism and communism) and therefore the need for the state to serve as a vehicle for carryingout this transformation, step-by-step and in conjunction with the masses the world over.

where this formal equality covers over the actual exploitation of the working class (the exchange of a fair day'spay for a fair day's work). See Bob Avakians book Democracy Cant We Do Better than That?, as well as hispolemic against K. Venu Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better than That, which appeared inthe journal A World to Win, Number 17. Many of these and other writings of Bob Avakian and the RCP areavailable for downloading at the web address: www.revcom.us or www.bobavakian.net.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

If the essence of the state is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, if it is understood tobe a vehicle for thoroughly uprooting class society and all of the evils that flow from it, then andonly then will it be possible to answer the question of what type of democracy is required andwhat forms it might take. Again, the Yadov affair is instructivewhat about the rights of thepeasants to own the land they till? These rights count for nothing in the kingdom of puredemocracy. And where is the state power to back up the rights of the peasantry, even if theywere formally recognized? But it is not only a question of which classes enjoy democracy underthe proletarian dictatorship and which classes are the object of this dictatorship. The proletariandictatorship can and must also guarantee the democratic rights of those intellectuals and othermiddle class strata whose class position between the masses and the exploiting classes tends toreinforce illusions of pure democracy.More importantly, in a society that is truly advancing on the socialist road, it is possible andnecessary to unleash the critical spirit among intellectuals and others and welcome the criticismthat such forces will have of the socialist society and proletarian rule, in the spirit of applying thedynamic Bob Avakian has called solid core with a lot of elasticity. In fact, the stifling ofdissent, the absence of rights, and bureaucratic stultification is a feature of revisionist rule (evena quick look at contemporary China shows this easily). The socialist society that revolutionarycommunists must construct will be a far livelier and more invigorating place for the masses andfor the intellectuals then any of the reactionary societies in the world today, whether they beliberal democracies like India or the U.S. or revisionist prisons like China or North Korea.Every state consists of a dictatorship led by a specific class (in alliance with others) and everystate requires a specific kind of democracy that corresponds to the interests of the ruling classand the kind of society it is building. This is why Lenin correctly stressed that the proletariandictatorship is a million times more democratic than the most liberal of bourgeois democracies.The crucial question is democracy for whom and for what aim? What is needed is democracyamong the broad ranks of the masses and dictatorship over the small number of exploiters, ademocracy that energizes society and mobilizes all of the diverse and contradictory features thatcan help propel the society forward along the socialist road toward communism. The kind ofdictatorship and the kind of democracy needed are those that reflect the truth Lenin was gettingat when he said communism springs forth from every pore. We do not need the empty shell ofbourgeois democracy where the exploiting classes and their socio-economic system set the termsand the limits of political life and discourse and that reduces the masses participation in politicsto an occasional vote or demonstration.88

Bob Avakian has done important work on the subject of democracy as well as re-envisioning the process ofsocialist revolution including bringing forward the concept of a solid core with a lot of elasticity. In addition tothe works on democracy cited above, see his discussion of the socialist revolution in, among other recent writings,Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity in Revolution and Communism: A Foundation and StrategicOrientation (2008).

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

The Election Miracle?

The most significant event that took place since we sent our letter of March 19, 2008 has beenthe Constituent Assembly elections, the emergence of the CPN(M) as the largest party in thecountry and the subsequent formation of a government with Comrade Prachanda at its head.One leading comrade of the CPN(M) described this as "the election miracle". And indeed, weourselves, like many other observers, were surprised by the result.We had written in our March 19 letter: The most likely result is that the CPN(M) will bedefeated fairly at the elections If in the extremely unlikely event that the Party did come tooccupy the key positions of government through this electoral process the very alliance required,the entanglement in bourgeois political institutions and with the international community willensure that there is no transfer of power to the proletariat and the oppressed classes and no basisfor the state to carry out the revolutionary transformation of society.What our party had predicted as extremely unlikely, that is the emergence of a CPN(M)-ledgovernment, has come into being.We were wrong to introduce a specific prediction of the election result in our previous letter. Notonly did this prediction turn out to be wrong, it weakens the essential and correct point we weremaking in that letter including in the paragraph cited abovethat the Constituent Assembly(CA) process could not lead to the peaceful transfer of power to the proletariat and masses ofNepal and would instead legitimize the reactionary bourgeois state. Advancing an electionprediction, whether or not it turned out to be correct, feeds into the very pragmatism that is sucha problem in the Partyjudging tactics and policy by whether they work (or seem to work)rather than by whether they correspond to fundamental objectives.The "mandate" that the Party obtained through the CA vehicle is not a mandate for completingthe new-democratic revolution. While it is true that the revolutionary masses of Nepal voted forthe CPN(M) out of the love and respect won in the course of the People's War, the deferentialtreatment of the CPN(M) by the bourgeoisie, imperialists and India came not from having wageda People's War but from having stopped one. Any support from the middle classes and others forthe Party on this basis (having stopped the war) will not further propel the Party towardcompleting the revolution but act as a brake on it.Without A Peoples Army the People Have NothingThe form of the state has been changed from monarchy to republic, but this does not representNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

the fulfilling of the new-democratic revolution. Far from it. The current state represents theperfecting of the old reactionary state, shorn of its monarchical costume, and this is trueregardless of what political party sits at the top this state this is a theme which we developed atlength in our letter of March 19, 2008. This new state system is objectively the continuation andperfecting of the old state, and as such it has no choice except to enforce the old reactionaryeconomic and social relations, and it can never be a vehicle for their destruction. Meanwhile thevery structures of power that had been established during the Peoples War to enforce the classinterests of the masses of the people have been dismantled. Without a new state power in thehands of the masses it is impossible for society to be revolutionized: as Lenin put it, withoutpolitical power all is illusion.Nowhere is this clearer than when examining the pillar on which this state standsthe (formerlyRoyal now republican) Nepal Army. All of Marxism as well as contemporary social experienceteaches again and again that it is the armed forces that are the central and decisive element of anystate. The People's Liberation Army, which had been the pillar of the new state that was beingforged in the base areas, has been confined to cantonments and is now threatened withliquidation through the process of "integration" into the old reactionary army. Without the PLAit will be impossible to protect the transformations that have already taken place in the baseareas, to say nothing of extending them throughout the whole country. We should never forgetMao's words that, without a People's Army, the people have nothing, nor the great sacrificesthat were required to build up a powerful PLA in Nepal.Any idea that the Nepal Army, even if it swallows up and digests part of the PLA, can betransformed into a People's Army, that it will become, in essence, anything other than what italways has been, is worse than ridiculous, it is extremely dangerous. As noted earlier, the role ofthe Nepal Army will be to continue to enforce the dominant social and production relations thatkeep the masses enslaved.Nor can we accept the argument concerning the two sides of the Nepal Armythat it hasalways been undemocratic in its defense of feudal oppression (true) but that it is has defendedthe interests of the nation (untrue).9 The fact is that the (Royal) Nepal Army has been the pillarof defending the decrepit reactionary social system, which, at least in the modern period, hasbeen entirely dominated by the world imperialist system. To talk of preserving theindependence of a comprador, bureaucrat capitalist state has a very restricted meaning. Nofundamental national independence can come about unless and until this old system is uprootedand the whole network that keeps Nepal ensnared in the world imperialist system is broken.Doesnt the role of the (Royal) Nepal Army in providing soldiers for UN peacekeepingmissions, which the new government has most unfortunately pledged to maintain, show the real9

See Red Star, Number 14, The Essentials for Fusing Two Armies.

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

relationship between the reactionary army and the world imperialist system?Time and again we have seen the inseparable link in the oppressed countries between achievingthe social emancipation of the masses and waging the struggle against imperialismand quiteoften communists have fallen into the error of supporting this or that reactionary state because ofits alleged anti-imperialist character. We should not forget the tragic experience of the comradesof Iran giving support to the Khomeini regime because of a mistaken view of Khomeinis antiimperialist aspect.10 Exactly because imperialism is a world system that is ever more deeplypenetrating all aspects of the social and economic structure, it is impossible for meaningfulsocial transformation to take place without a radical rupture with imperialism, and, conversely,reactionary so-called anti-imperialist states have a strong tendency to compromise, capitulateor collapse in the face of imperialist aggression and bullying. The achievement of genuinenational independence is inseparable from the liberation of the masses and can never be obtainedby a reactionary army.No, the task of smashing the old state apparatus, the seizure of political power by force, hasbeen and remains the crucial first great task of the revolution in Nepal, as in all other countries.We have not been convinced that the line of fighting for a transitional state has in any wayhastened or facilitated the fulfillment of this task. On the contrary, the transition that we haveseen is a transition to a more fully consolidated bourgeois order and, unfortunately, raises thedanger of the transformation of the CPN(M) itself from a force that led the masses in fightingagainst the old order into a force for the preservation of this old order in its present Republicanskin.Part of the Rebirth of Revolutionary Communism or Part of its Burial?The current conjuncture of the revolution in Nepal must be seen in this context of the crossroadsnow facing the entire international communist movement. It is coming at a time when, thirtyyears after the defeat of proletarian rule in Mao's China and after decades of relentless anticommunist assault by the imperialists and their apologists the world over, the whole internationalcommunist movement has reached a low point in the effectiveness of its struggle and, mostimportantly, in its ideological clarity and its resolve to fulfill its revolutionary objectives.As it was put in a recent Manifesto from our Party,The temporary defeat of socialism and the end of the first stage of the communist revolution has...among other things... led to lowered sights and low dreams. Even among many people whoonce would have known better and would have striven higher, it has led, in the short run, to10

The comrades of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) have summed up at length the error oftheir predecessor organization, the Union of Iran Communists, in this regard.

November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

acceptance of the idea thatin reality and at least for the foreseeable futurethere can be noalternative to the world as it is, under the domination of imperialism and other exploiters. Thatthe most one can hope for and work for are some secondary adjustments within the framework ofaccommodation to this system. That anything elseand especially the attempt to bring about arevolutionary rupture out of the confines of this system, aiming toward a radically different,communist worldis unrealistic and is bound to bring disaster.11The necessity and desirability of completely sweeping away capitalist exploitation and radicallytransforming the whole planet is greater than ever before but the possibility of such arevolutionary transformation is not seen or is denied. Complex new problems in makingrevolution have emergedfor example the massive trend toward urbanization in the oppressedcountrieswhile the very conditions of capitalism and imperialism's breakneck triumphaldevelopment of the last several decades has actually further prepared the ground for the victoryof the proletarian revolution by furthering the great class cleavages, by tying the destinies of themasses of people in different countries even more tightly together, and by ever more clearlyrevealing the world capitalist system as an obstacle to the further advance of human society.We must prepare and lead a whole wave of proletarian revolution that can show both in its visionand in its practice how it will be possible to take society to a completely different place. It is inthis light that the revolution in Nepal must be seen. If it can clarify its objectives and overcomeits current predicament, the revolution in Nepal will rekindle hopes in the ranks of the genuinecommunists and conscious revolutionary masses the world over. The Peoples War fueled thehope that, after several decades in which the imperialists and the reactionary ruling classes havecontrolled every country on the earth, a new state was being born where the masses of the peopleled by the proletariat and its vanguard communist party would hold power. The Peoples Warcracked open the door to see how political power in the hands of the masses could be used tothoroughly uproot the old semi-feudal and capitalist social relations and build a radicallydifferent society opposed to the world imperialist system, a beacon for the revolutionary massesin the volatile South Asian region. But the revisionism and eclecticism from the leadership of theCPN(M) is snuffing out this very hope and instead is reinforcing the message of the internationalbourgeoisie that there is no real alternative to the imperialist system, that the only real possibilityis to improve the position of the country (or really that of its ruling class) within this imperialistsystem.In this letter we will only briefly protest against the present international line of the CPN(M)leadership. It has been shown over and over again that the international orientation of a politicalparty is not a minor matter somehow unconnected to its overall ideological and political line.Today we see the CPN(M) leadership presenting imperialist and reactionary enemies as friends11

Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA,September 2008.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

10

and even treating some of them as strategic allies of the revolution. How are we to understandthe many speeches and articles justifying the suppression of the masses in Tibet12 or worse, thoseextolling the wonders that China has accomplished under revisionist rule? And not a word13about the tens of thousands of Chinese children poisoned by the milk adulterated by thecapitalists or those buried under the rubble of schools built by unscrupulous contractors.We often hear comrades of the CPN(M) justify this or that tactic on a national or internationalscale in order to make use of contradictions among the enemies. Certainly this is a necessaryand correct part of revolutionary tactics, but only if those tactics flow from the fundamentalstrategic interests of the proletarian revolution and if those tactics do not violate revolutionarycommunist principles.New Synthesis or Tired Old Bourgeois Democracy?One of the great tragedies of the great right turn in the CPN(M) has been that instead of helpingthe revival of the communist movement internationally by showing the viability of arevolutionary communist orientation, which the People War objectively did in large measure,the Party's present line and practice is only strengthening the anti-communist verdict that theimperialists and reactionaries have tried to impose throughout the world, especially following thedefeat in China and the collapse of the USSR.14Now, when the first wave of proletarian revolution that began with the Paris Commune andcontinued through the Cultural Revolution in China has ended and a new wave of proletarianrevolution has yet to break forth, questions of ideology have taken on a particular importance.Bob Avakian has stepped forward to the challenge of summing up the tremendous experience ofthe first wave of proletarian revolution, its grievous shortcomings as well as its heroicaccomplishments, and has brought forward a new synthesis. To quote from our party'sManifesto, there is an analogy to what was done by Marx at the beginning of the communistmovementestablishing in the new conditions that exist, after the end of the first stage of thecommunist revolution, a theoretical framework for the renewed advance of that revolution. Buttoday, and with this new synthesis, it is most emphatically not a matter of back to the drawing12

We are well aware of the fact that the US imperialists and others are making use of the reactionary nature of theTibetan leadership, especially the Dalai Lama, to put pressure on China and manipulate the discontent of the Tibetanmasses. But this does not change the fact that real national oppression exists in Tibet, nor does it justify the viciousrepression by the Chinese authorities.13Here we can only speak of the English language materials of the CPN(M). If such exposure of the true nature ofcapitalist China has appeared in Nepali publications we would like to have them pointed out to us.14Although the USSR had long previously become a revisionist, social-imperialist superpower, the fact that itsleaders still referred to themselves as communists made the collapse of this regime and the unchallengedhegemony of the US and other Western democracies an occasion for further anti communist summation fromthe Western imperialists and other reactionaries.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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board, as if what is called for is throwing out both the historical experience of the communistmovement and the socialist societies it brought into being and the rich body of revolutionaryscientific theory that developed through this first wave. That would represent an unscientific,and in fact a reactionary, approach. Rather, what is requiredand what Avakian has undertakenis building on all that has gone before, theoretically and practically, drawing the positive andthe negative lessons from this, and raising this to a new, higher level of synthesis.But unfortunately, the leadership of the CPN(M) has adopted an opposite approach that acceptsthe unscientific anti-communist verdicts of the international bourgeoisie and renounces thedictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transition toward socialism and communism.Instead, the very old ideology of bourgeois democracy is being presented as Communism of the21st Century and the actual communism of the 21st century as it is concretely emerging is beingignored, belittled or opposed.Emancipators of Humanity Or Builders of a New Switzerland?One of the central points that Bob Avakian has been emphasizing as part of the new synthesisthat he has been bringing forward is the crucial importance of communists seeing themselves andtraining the proletariat to be emancipators of humanity. This is far different from seeing therole of the revolution as simply improving the lot of the specific section of the masses who havesupported it. Yes, the revolution must and will dramatically improve the lives of the masses ofpeople and, in fact, capitalist development will not bring about a better life for the majority. Indesperately poor Nepal the question of lifting the heavy burden of poverty is a crucial part of anyrevolutionary transformation.A basic question is whether development must come by being more integrated into the capitalistand imperialist systemthat is by welcoming and organizing more capitalist exploitationorwhether the socialist road is actually possible: building a viable and emancipatory social andeconomic system that in a fundamental sense is opposed to the world capitalist system.This is one of the reasons we find it so strange to see the CPN(M) promising the ten, twenty,forty to the masses (doubling the gross national product in ten years, doubling it again in thefollowing ten years and reaching the level of Switzerland within forty years). Not only wouldthis imply a growth rate far greater than has ever been achieved before, such as in China underMao, but it implies that the imperialists will actually help bring these developments about. Infact, repeated experience in the real world shows that wherever the imperialist system reaches,backwardness and poverty are far from eradicated, even if bubbles of development grow andbenefit a minority of urban dwellers.Now, bit-by-bit, it is being revealed that this transformation will be possible by becoming theNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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dynamic link between India and China. So what is this really saying? It is saying that bymaking Nepal a functioning, dynamic part of the world imperialist system, somehow thecountry will benefit from the capitalist development of India and China and their interrelation.This dream is both impossible and reactionary. Even if the reactionary states and the imperialistswere persuaded to accept this model, it would certainly be a relative handful of the wealthy inKathmandu Valley who would be part of this dynamic link, while the great majority of thepopulation would be left to rot in the countryside or in the slums. With China and India bothhellholes for the masses of people in the countryside and the slums, why would the dynamiclink between them be any different? Is this really what is in the interests of the masses inNepal? How does this model fit with the task of promoting revolution in India, China andelsewhere?Not only is this vision based completely on a model of vigorous uninterrupted capitalism, thisgoal of becoming a Switzerland is itself quite revealing. After all, what is Switzerland? It is asmall highly parasitic and reactionary imperialist state that has grown very wealthy due to itsparticular position as a major center of banking and finance of the world imperialist system,located in the heart of imperialist Europe. Does such a goal and vision have anything to do withachieving communism? In other words, a country can only become a Switzerland based onachieving a privileged position in the imperialist world and sharing in the plunder of themajority of mankind. Is this really what the masses in Nepal have fought for? How does this goalhelp emancipate humanity?It is ironic that at the very moment the CPN(M) leadership is seeking a development modelbased on the continued and uninterrupted development of imperialism, the crisis of worldcapitalism is exploding all around them. Capitalist China and India will also suffer as thecontradictions of world capitalism catch up with it, and even the dream of a Nepalese dynamichub between these two reactionary states could well explode in a puff of smoke.It is impossible to overestimate the role a genuine proletarian revolutionary state could make intransforming the still mainly unfavorable international situation. Such a regime may not be ableto set growth records for capitalist development, but it could take giant steps forward, andquickly, to solve many of the most basic problems of the masses, such as food security,employment within the country, sanitation, basic health services in the rural areas, and muchmore. The existence of such a state, even a small one like Nepal, would rekindle hope among theoppressed masses, especially in the region, and demonstrate that a revolutionary path is possible.So the choice is between pursuing a path of integration into the capitalist system, which mightbenefit relatively small strata, or pursuing a development path based on the interests and needs ofthe great majority of the people in opposition to the world capitalist system. Yes, this latter,socialist, road is difficult, and there is no guarantee of how events will unfold. But we areNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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guaranteed that a capitalist Nepal can only mean misery for the majority, and a state based onthis economic system cannot help but be one more link in the web of relations that keep theworld enslaved to the world imperialist system.When we say that the dominant line of the CPN(M) leadership represents a bourgeoisorientation, we are not hurling insults or impugning the character of the comrades. We aresimply stressing what we consider to be a scientific evaluation of the incorrect line they areleading: the conception of pure democracy standing apart from and above the cleavage ofsociety into classes corresponds to the capitalist mode of production and not to the communistoutlook based on the goal of surpassing class divisions. And so we are not at all surprised thatthe Party leadership is now loudly proclaiming the benefits of capitalism and proposing concreteprograms for the acceleration of capitalism in the country. What we have seen in the recentmonths is nothing other than the first fruits of the tree of capitalism under this line andleadership, and you can be sure that other, ever more sour fruits will be sure to follow.Despite the claims of the CPN(M) leaders that they are aiming eventually to achieve acommunist society, in truth they completely confound democracy and communism. They arethemselves prisoners of their own world outlook. Furthermore, the CPN(M) leadership is fallinginto the age-old revisionist error that the achievement of communism depends primarily on thefurther advance of the productive forces, to be achieved by capitalist ends. This is precisely theline that Mao and the revolutionaries in China fought out in the course of the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution against Liu Shao-chi and later Deng Xiao-ping.Earlier in the history of the Chinese revolution, the question was clearly posed as to whether itwould be possible to build socialism in a backward country. Indeed, Mao's whole thesis of newdemocracy was based very much on showing how it was possible to do so and, of course, he thenwent about doing so in practice. In the course of the Cultural Revolution Mao raised the slogangrasp revolution, promote production, thus correctly showing that the productive forces ofsociety could be unleashed by further revolutionary transformationthe exact opposite of theargument that many are making in Nepal now that development must come by capitalist means.Two-Line Struggle or Three Lines?One of the particularities of centrism and eclecticism is its refusal to make a clear-cutdemarcation between Marxism and revisionism, but instead to try to carve out a position halfway between a revolutionary communist ideology and politics and outright capitulation andopportunism. In Nepal it is this form of centrist revisionism that has become the greater danger,not those who unabashedly proclaim their adhesion to the ideology of multiparty democracy andthe glories of capitalism. The tired refrain is that there is the danger of revisionism or rightismon the one hand, but there is also the danger of dogmatism on the other, and that byNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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skillfully maneuvering between these two obstacles the Party has gone from victory to victory.Or, there is the recognition-in-words of fundamental principles, the ABCs of Marxism, such asthe need to smash the existing state apparatus, while the Partys actual policy goes completelycontrary to this goal.This brings us back to the argument we and other comrades have raised regarding the CPN(M)srepudiation of the Maoist principle of one divides into two. The belief in the possibility andeven necessity of reconciling or fusing together antagonist opposites has become a deeplyengrained part of the CPN(M) leaderships approach.15 The fusion of Marxism and reformism isreally not a brilliant new contribution to the communist movement. It is just one moreunfortunate and tragic case where the communist leadership has lost its bearings.We should remind comrades that every revisionist party always has a left whose roleobjectively is to provide an outlet for the discontent of the masses and sections of the rank andfile, while keeping these same sections bound to the political program of the party leadership.The point is not the lack of sincerity of those who still try to combine justification and support ofthe CPN(M)'s objectively capitulationist line with language upholding proletarian revolution.The problem is that such language in support of revolution becomes meaningless, a meredeception of oneself and others, unless it is combined with an all-out struggle against the veryrevisionism that is threatening the advance of the revolution.Eclecticism and centrism, especially when raised to the level of philosophical approach andprinciple as is the case with the CPN(M) leadership, do not represent a position that is halfcorrect or somehow more correct than an openly revisionist position. On the contrary, it is aform of revisionism in which an anti-Marxist ideology and political line are allowed to flourishand are actually determining the course of political action, while better sounding words serve tocover over this reality and confuse the masses and comrades. Lenins words, which the Chinesecomrades often referred to during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, are cruel butunfortunately right on target: In falsifying Marxism in opportunist fashion, the substitution ofeclecticism for dialectics is the easiest way of deceiving the people. It gives an illusorysatisfaction; it seems to take into account all sides of the process, all trends of development, allthe conflicting influences, and so forth, whereas in reality it provides no integral andrevolutionary conception of the process of social development at all.16Yes, there is a marked tendency toward dogmatism in the ranks of RIM and the ICM moregenerally. But the CPN(M) solution is not the antidote to the dogmatic disease. A dogmaticrefusal to make a concrete analysis of concrete conditions as Lenin referred to the living soul15

See the argument that the CPN(M) made on this question in their reply to our October 2005 letter and thecriticism of this point in both our letter of March 19, 2008. This point has also been made by some RIM comrades.16Lenin, The State and Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 405.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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of Marxism has often gone hand-in-hand with revisionist political positions.

Rather than look to find a middle ground between two opposite forms of revisionism, be it theclassic rightist form or sterile dogmatism, and end up incorporating the worst features of each,we propose that comrades focus their attention on what is in common between these mirroropposite forms of revisionism. The Manifesto recently issued by our Party points to thefollowing common features of both forms of revisionism prevalent in the ICM as a whole:** Never taking upor never engaging in any systematic way witha scientific summation ofthe previous stage of the communist movement, and in particular Mao Tsetung's path-breakinganalysis concerning the danger of and basis for capitalist restoration in socialist society. Thus,while they may upholdor may in the past have upheldthe Cultural Revolution in China, theylack any real, or profound, understanding of why this Cultural Revolution was necessary andwhy and with what principles and objectives Mao initiated and led this Cultural Revolution.They reduce this Cultural Revolution to, in effect, just another episode in the exercise of thedictatorship of the proletariator, on the other hand, reinterpret it as some kind of bourgeoisdemocratic anti-bureaucracy movement, which in essence represents a negation of the need fora communist vanguard and its institutionalized leading role in socialist society, throughout thetransition to communism.** The common tendency to reduce Maoism to just a prescription for waging people's war ina Third World country, while again ignoring, or diminishing the importance of, Mao's mostimportant contribution to communism: his development of the theory and line of continuing therevolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and all the rich analysis and scientific methodthat underlay and made possible the development of that theory and line.** Positivism, pragmatism, and empiricism. While again, this may take different expressions inaccordance with different particular erroneous viewpoints and approaches, what is common tothem is the vulgarization and degradation of theoryreducing it to a guide to practice only inthe most narrow and immediate sense, treating theory as, in essence, a direct outgrowth ofparticular practice, and attempting to establish an equivalence between advanced practice (whichitself, especially on these people's part, involves an element of subjective and arbitraryevaluation) and supposedly advanced theory. A scientific communist, materialist and dialectical,viewpoint leads to the understanding that practice is the ultimate point of origin and point ofverification of theory; but, in opposition to these narrow, empiricist distortions, this must beunderstood to mean practice in the broad sense, encompassing broad social and historicalexperience, and not simply the direct experience of a particular individual, group, party, ornation. The very founding, and the further development of, communist theory itself is a powerfuldemonstration of this: From the time of Marx, this theory has been forged and enriched bydrawing from a broad array of experience, in a wide range of fields and over a broad expanse ofhistorical development, in society and nature. Practice as the source of theory and the maxim thatpractice is the criterion of truth can be, and will be, turned into a profound untruth if this isNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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interpreted and applied in a narrow, empiricist, and subjective manner.

** Very significantly, these mirror opposite erroneous tendencies have in common beingmired in, or retreating into, models of the past, of one kind or another (even if the particularmodels may differ): either clinging dogmatically to the past experience of the first stage of thecommunist revolutionor, rather, to an incomplete, one-sided, and ultimately erroneousunderstanding of thator retreating into the whole past era of bourgeois revolution and itsprinciples: going back to what are in essence 18th century theories of (bourgeois) democracy, inthe guise, or in the name, of 21st-century communism, in effect equating this 21st-centurycommunism with a democracy that is supposedly pure or classlessa democracy which, inreality, as long as classes exist, can only mean bourgeois democracy, and bourgeois dictatorship.All this while ignoring, treating as outdated, or dismissing as dogma (or consigning to themeaningless category of the ABCs of communism, which are acknowledged as an abstractionand then put to the side as irrelevant to the practical struggle) the fundamental, scientificcommunist understanding, paid for literally and repeatedly in the blood of millions of theoppressed from the time of the Paris Commune, that the old, reactionary state must be smashedand dismantled and a radically new state must be brought into being, representing therevolutionary interests of the formerly exploited in transforming all of society and emancipatingall of humanity, or else any gains of the revolutionary struggle will be squandered and destroyed,and the revolutionary forces decimated.17In Summation: Fight to Save the Revolution!It is true that now that the Party has dug itself such a big hole it will be difficult to dig out. Buthowever difficult this task may be, the only solution is a real radical rupture, a revolution inthinking, a determined and protracted effort to criticize and repudiate the revisionist orientationthat has been increasingly dominating the Party ideologically, politically and organizationally.Anything short of such a determined effort, any attempts to maneuver and finesse away fromthe abyss without confronting the magnitude and source of the problem will not only fail toavoid the impending disaster but will actually be ideologically and politically paralyzing. Halfsolutions are no solution at all and, on the contrary, part of the problem.We are not in a position to comment on what tactics or immediate steps the CPN(M) should takein the present situation. But we are convinced that if fundamental clarity is achieved on the vitalquestions of the state and revolution, the comrades in Nepal can find appropriate means toreverse the current path. The CPN(M) enjoys a tremendous reservoir of support from among the17

We strongly encourage comrades to study Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from theRevolutionary Communist Party, USA, which includes our partys understanding of the overall situation of theinternational communist movement in todays juncture and discusses the lessons of a major struggle within our ownparty to uphold and advance communist principles.November 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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masses of the people of the whole country. The Peoples War ignited the hopes of the longdowntrodden and unleashed them. The masses of the poor peasantry, the oppressed nationalities,women and oppressed castes need the revolution to go forward and will never be satisfied by afew representatives in parliament or government. The PLA is in peril, but it has not yet fallenvictim to the conspiracies to dissolve it. And despite the efforts of the Party leadership to panderto the backward ideas of the urban middle classes (especially their illusions about puredemocracy), experience has shown that the educated youth, intellectuals and others from themiddle strata can be won to the side of the revolution on a positive basis by showing how theirinterests can best be fulfilled not by aborting the revolution but by carrying it through to itsvictory. Despite the great damage of the wrong line in command of the Party, a strong objectivebasis remains to rescue the revolution and carry it through to the establishment of a revolutionarystate led by the proletariat and its vanguard.On the other hand, unless the Party abandons its current confusion on the nature of the state, onthe class nature of dictatorship and democracy, on the confounding of the socialist road and thecapitalist road, and the confusion of friends and enemies on the international scale, all efforts torectify the present state of affairs will be in vain. It will not be possible to reduce the feverwithout attacking the underlying sickness that is causing it.The main form that revisionism has been taking in Nepaland a major problem in ourMovement as a wholehas been eclecticism and centrism. While some leaders of the Party haveall along expressed their support for the political system of bourgeois democracy and their beliefin the necessity for the country to pass through a whole stage of capitalism, the greater problemhas been those in the Party leadership who have floundered ideologicallyconfusing bourgeoisdemocracy with the new-democratic dictatorship, combining two into one, confusing strategyand tactics, confounding secondary and principal aspects of a contradiction, talking one languagein private and another in public, and in general saying one thing and doing another.The problem can be overcome, but only if a radical rupture takes place with the currentdominant centrism and eclectics. This means that a pressing and immediate task is theideological reaffirmation of the basic goals of the proletarian revolution as distinct frombourgeois democracy, reaffirming the new-democratic revolution as the vehicle for achievingthis in Nepal, and reaffirming the basic means to accomplish the revolution. On this basis it willbe possible to sweep away the cobwebs of revisionism, eclecticism and centrism and really meetthe challenges of communism of the 21st century. It is worthwhile recalling that one of the mainfocal points of the final ferocious struggle against the capitalist roaders in China was the debateover the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chang Chun-chiao, one of the main leaders of Maosrevolutionary headquarters in the party, spoke sharply to some of the other party leaders whowere not playing a good role in the struggle. He pointed out: some of you consider the study ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat to be a flexible task, but the capitalist roaders understandNovember 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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very clearly that it is an inflexible task with life and death implications for the revolution.Similarly, the current debate concerning the path forward in Nepal is no less vital.Our comrades in Nepal are caught in a swamp and in dire danger of drowning. And what hasbeen the reaction of RIM comrades in other countries to this emergency? While a few have triedto assist as best they can, unfortunately some others have thrown flowers to the flounderingcomrades when what they critically need is a strong rope to pull themselves out of the swamp.The necessary rope exists: it is nothing other than the revolutionary communist ideological andpolitical line, its stand, viewpoint and method. It is a scientific understanding of the world andthe revolutionary process, which is constantly developing as it steadfastly upholds and buildsupon the achievements as well as summing up the positive and negative experiences of the firstwave of proletarian revolution, incorporates discoveries and advances in every sphere of humanendeavor and confronts both new problems of revolution and old problems in new forms. Thecurrent two-line struggle within the CPN(M) is taking place within the context of the greaterquestion of whether, and on what basis, a whole new wave of world proletarian revolution can bebrought forward.The experience of the revolution in Nepal is very rich indeed, and one can see the real-lifeimplications of political and ideological line, both positively through the ten years of PeoplesWar and more recently negatively in the period of dismantling the peoples power. Nevertheless,the belief that the advanced practice of the Nepal revolution has made it unnecessary to learnfrom advanced understanding from other comrades is part of the pragmatism and empiricism thathas, unfortunately, been a growing part of the CPN(M) leaderships ideological orientation forsome time now. Any effort to resolve the crisis in the CPN(M) only on its own terms, and onnationalist or empiricist grounds to ignore or resist the advanced revolutionary communistunderstanding developing elsewhere is to severely handicap the struggle for a correct line. Inparticular, we sincerely hope that the comrades of the CPN(M) will give serious attention toengaging with the body of work, method and approach, the new synthesis, that Bob Avakian hasbeen bringing forward.

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We will conclude by sending our warm greetings to the leaders, cadres and fighters of theCPN(M) at this crucial crossroads of the revolution and our hopes that the crucial struggle willbe carried through to a successful conclusion. The correct political and ideological line iscapable of transforming the present direction of the Party and avoiding the abyss. Those whohave played a revolutionary role in the past can, if armed with a correct line, cast off the baggageof eclecticism, pragmatism and centrism and retake the revolutionary road. But this will only beachieved by fighting through for the necessary radical rupture. We pledge again to do everythingwe can to assist you in this struggle, which will not only determine the future for Nepal but isinseparable from the crucial questions that are now facing the entire international communistmovement.Revolutionary Communist Party, USA4 November 2008

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Editors Note:These letters are as they originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to RIM publications.19 March 2008To the Participating Parties and Organizations of the RIMComrades,For some time now our Party has been greatly disturbed by the direction the Communist Party ofNepal (Maoist) (CPN[M]) has been taking in terms of its political and ideological positions andthe policies that flow from them. Many of our concerns about fundamental questions wereexpressed in a letter sent to the comrades of the CPN(M) in October 2005. That letter waswritten before the April 2006 anti-monarchy movement and the subsequent ceasefire, theadoption of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the joining of the interim Nepalgovernment and other developments. However much the CPN(M) comrades laid out that ourParty is simply unable to understand their creative tactics, in reality our debate with theCPN(M) around points of theory and basic line preceded their practice over the last two years.The CPN(M) has a theory leading to a series of steps down a path whose final outcome iscoming into sharper and sharper focus. It is the CPN(M)s political and ideological line, and notthis or that tactic, which was and remains the central focus of our struggle.One of the central political questions we raised in our debate with the CPN(M) was whether thecurrent stage of the struggle is for the establishment of a new-democratic republic, that is, theform of the dictatorship of the proletariat appropriate in the conditions of Nepal, or whether therevolution must pass through the process of consolidating a bourgeois democratic republic.This question that we were debating in theory has, over the last two years, taken on flesh andbones. Two states had emerged in the course of the ten year-long Peoples War: the oldreactionary comprador-bureaucrat-capitalist-feudal state led by the monarchy in league withimperialism, and the embryonic new-democratic state that had emerged in the countryside on thebasis of the strength of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The objective question facingNepal is which of these states will emerge victorious and be consolidated on a nationwide leveland which of them will be defeated. The great tragedy is that the political line and muddledthinking of the comrades of the CPN(M) has to a large degree delegitimized the revolutionarystate that had emerged in the countryside and relegitimized the dictatorship of the reactionaryclasses linked to the world imperialist system. The Party is now focused on the upcomingConstituent Assembly (CA) whose task is precisely to consolidate a bourgeois democraticrepublic, with all that that means in the conditions of the oppressed countries.Over the past two years and more our Party has conducted a continual struggle with thecomrades of the CPN(M) within the framework of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement(RIM) and we will continue to do so to the best of our capacity.March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

We are convinced that unless the CPN(M) makes a radical rupture with its present course, unlessit repudiates a series of conceptions that have been guiding it in the past period, the tremendousaccomplishments of the Peoples War in Nepal will be squandered, and the great hopes that therevolution in Nepal has lit among the masses of that country and many others worldwide will bedashed once again. Indeed, this process of the undoing of the revolution and its transformationinto something else is already well advanced.Despite this heartbreaking trajectory it is late but not too late for the comrades in Nepal toradically change directions. This is the pressing and immediate task without which it isimpossible to lead the revolution to a successful conclusion.It goes without saying that the outcome of the struggle now unfolding in Nepal will be felt farbeyond the borders of that country. The comrades in Nepal have been an important componentof RIM since its formation and our Movement has been deeply engaged with the ideological andpolitical questions as they have emerged in connection with the launching and unfolding of thePeoples War in that country. As the comrades of the CPN(M) have themselves often put it, theoutcome of the revolution in Nepal is a common responsibility of the whole RIM.It is in this spirit that our Party is continuing the struggle, in order to have a constructive impacton the situation in Nepal and fight for the RIM and all of the parties that make it up to accepttheir responsibilities to wage a fierce and substantial struggle against the line that has been incommand in the CPN(M). After all, RIM has rightfully declared itself the embryonic politicalcenter of the worlds Maoist forces and has tried to live up to this great task. What meaningwould this have if our Movement were to remain silent and passive, or worse yet cheering along,as an important party of our Movement takes decisions of a tragic dimension with such profoundconsequences for a revolution we hold so dear? Of what meaning is proletarianinternationalism and international solidarity if it does not have as its bedrock the need to cryhalt when the precious achievements of the revolution are being destroyed?On one level, the positions and policies of the CPN(M) over the last two years are, or should be,recognizable as a departure from basic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) principles and the verybasis on which our Movement was formed. The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreementof November 2006 in which the organs of political power built up through a decade of PeoplesWar were dismantled, in which the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) was confined tocantonments and most of its weapons locked up under UN supervision, the legitimization ofthe old army, the old parliament and the old state generally, redefining the goal of the PeoplesWar as the establishment of a (bourgeois) federal democratic republic (under the CPN[M]slogan of restructuring the state), the promotion of a whole series of erroneous positions oncrucial questions of the nature of the state, elections and so forthall of this does, or should,cause any communist more than just alarm. And indeed a great many comrades have, in oneform or another, expressed their concerns or reservations about the direction of events inNepal. But the particular form of the leading line in the Party, as we will explain, is characterizedMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

essentially by eclecticism in philosophythe merging and reconciliation of opposites, put simply,

to combine two into one instead of the Marxist method of dividing one into two. TheCPN(M) leaders listen politely to the concerns of comrades, thank those who offer them,assure others of their commitments to our common communist objectives and then proceed everdeeper into the quicksand. Unfortunately, the main reaction of many comrades of other partieshas been to accept the hollow assurances of the Party leadership.In the most recent period, as the Party has geared up for its Constituent Assembly electoralcampaign, the promotion of revisionist positions has reached new heights. When our Partypointed out in our previous letter why we felt that the CPN(M)s line and policies were wrongand contrary to Marxist principles, we were told that all we had done is repeat the ABCs ofMarxism. This is true to an important degree: substituting the goal of a federal democraticrepublic for new-democratic revolution led by the proletariat is something that anyone the leastfamiliar with Marxism could fairly easily recognize to be contrary to Marxist principles. Later,we will examine why so many of the parties and organizations of RIM seem to find thisdeparture from the ABCs of Marxism tolerableif not laudable.As mentioned earlier, our dispute with the comrades of the CPN(M) did not begin with theirdecision to sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the Seven Party Alliance, the mainrepresentatives (except the king) of the reactionary classes in Nepal. A discussion within theCPN(M) intensified in 2005, which the Party characterized as a two line struggle. In particularone of the protagonists in this struggle, Comrade Baburam Bhattarai, published a comprehensivearticle entitled The Question of Building a New Type of State which, in our opinion,represented a basic departure from a correct Marxist understanding of the state, democracy andthe proletarian dictatorship. In hopes of contributing to the discussion that was then underway inthe Party, we wrote our criticism of that article, along with our criticism of the proposal for thedemobilizing of the PLA and the Royal Nepal Army and eventually merging them into one.1At more or less the same time our letter was received, the CPN(M) held a Central Committeemeeting which resolved the two-line struggle with what represented, in our opinion, the adoptionof the line argued in the New State article in an eclectic form. The explanation in theresolution of that meeting was that the line adopted of going for a democratic republic and atransitional state was only tactical but that the strategy remained one of new democracy,socialism and communism.This eclecticism in politics and ideology is reflected throughout the writings and actions of theCPN(M) in the past period. To make things even worse, there is an increasing tendency toidentify the federal democratic republic, which is most definitely a bourgeois republic, withthe elimination of exploitation and classes. The tendency toward combining two into one isreflected right down to the publication of photos of their leaders smeared with tikka2 coupledwith the explanation that red is the color of the proletariat.Later we will return at more length to the vital question of eclecticism and the tending tocombine two into one. For the moment we will simply recall Lenins words:March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

Dialectics are replaced by eclecticismthis is the most usual, the most widespread practice to bemet with in present-day official Social-Democratic literature in relation to Marxism. This sort ofsubstitution is, of course, nothing new: it was observed even in the history of Greek philosophy.In falsifying Marxism in opportunist fashion, the substitution of eclecticism for dialectics is theeasiest way of deceiving the people. It gives an illusory satisfaction; it seems to take into accountall sides of the process, all trends of development, all the conflicting influences, and so forth,whereas in reality it provides no integral and revolutionary conception of the process of socialdevelopment at all. (The State and Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 405.)Troubling Tactics In the Pursuit of a Wrong Ideological and Political LineMany of the articles and documents of the CPN(M) are content to express the goal of therevolution as simply the achieving of a democratic, federal and proportional republic. But it istrue that there are other articles and speeches, not to mention the frequent informal assurances,such as in the letter to the RCP, that the Party understands or aims to achieve new democracy,socialism and communism. Here is where eclecticism plays its role in dulling the vigilance of thecommunists and the advanced masses. Promises about the final goal are sprinkled here and there,but the operative thing is elections for the Constituent Assembly and throwing all the Party intogear around this.We will not review all of the arguments made in our previous letter concerning the relationshipbetween strategy and tactics, the danger of tactics eating up strategy, and so forth, other than toencourage the comrades to reread our previous letter in light of the developments of the last twoyears. In this broader sense tactics, or perhaps better put, policy, is a necessary and appropriatearena for discussion and debate within our Movement. Nevertheless, it is the overall question ofpolitical and ideological line and not the specific tactics and policy of the CPN(M) that is thecentral and decisive question.In the CPN(M)s reply to our letter, they go so far as to make a principle out of denying thispoint. The problem with the RCP, according to the Nepalese comrades, is that we address onlythe level of strategy, whereas, the comrades insist, revolutions are not won or lost on thestrategic level but rather on the level of tactics. The comrades argue, Frankly speaking, it isvery easy not to commit any mistakes in strategy The test of revolutionaries, including yourParty, is best taken by tactics, not strategy. Therefore, the fate of the revolution depends fully noton the strategy alone, but on what kinds of tactical moves one adopts at various junctures of therevolution to attain the strategic goal.In reality, history is quite different. Sometimes revolutions are defeated not because of themistakes of the revolutionaries but because of the unfavorable balance of forces. But in thosecases where the subjective factor, that is, the understanding and actions of the revolutionaries,has been the major factor leading to the failure of the revolution, it is often precisely thatcommunists have misidentified the strategic tasks of the revolution, mistaken enemies andfriends, or departed from the fundamental path. On the contrary, a tactical blunder can usually beMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

overcome unless it has strategic implications.

In this same vein, the reason we are so disturbed by many of the tactics, or policies, that theCPN(M) has been following in the last period is that these tactics objectively go against thestrategic objective of accomplishing the new-democratic revolution.Despite the CPN(M)s charge against our Party of dogmatism and inflexibility, we are quiteaware of the need, especially in a period of revolutionary upsurge, for tactical flexibility, makinguse of contradictions among the enemy, reaching broader sections of the masses and creative anddaring initiatives in the interests of the proletarian revolution. For example, our Party defendedthe possibility of ceasefire and negotiations in the course of the Peoples War in Nepal and moregenerally.3 It is quite likely that in the specific conditions prevailing after the collapse of theabsolute monarchy in April 2006 it would have been difficult and perhaps undesirable tocontinue uninterruptedly the armed struggle against the Royal Nepalese Army or refuse to enterinto negotiations with the Seven Party Alliance. Due to the terror of repression during thePeoples War, the Partys contact with the masses had been restricted, especially in the urbanareas. It was no doubt necessary for the Party to take maximum advantage of the crisis of theruling class and its political institutions to project its program for the future society and preparethe masses for a revolutionary solution to the institutional crisis. But unfortunately this is notmainly what the Party has done. The nationwide and even international platform that theCPN(M) gained as a result of ten years of Peoples War and the ensuing April 2006 antimonarchy movement and political and institutional crises has not been used to extol the newform of state in Nepal they had built in the base areas, not to expose the bankruptcy of the rulingclass forces, and most definitely not to draw a clear line of distinction between bourgeoisdictatorship and bourgeois democracy, on the one hand, and the proletarian dictatorship andproletarian democracy on the other. We will even go so far as to state that the decision toparticipate in the Constituent Assembly elections might have been necessary and justified if itwere part of a different and, in fact, opposite, political line in command in the Party.4None of the above is meant to justify the actual policy and tactics that the CPN(M) has beenadopting. What we are saying is that these tactics alone, abstracted from their overall politicaland strategic context, cannot be the basis for judging the line and direction of the CPN(M). Theopposite is true as well: a return to more open combat will not, in and of itself, answer thequestion of political and ideological line. It is certainly to be expected that the denouement ofthe profound institutional crisis in Nepal will not be peaceful. Even run-of-the-mill bourgeoiselections in the third world countries are often accompanied by bloodshed. And in Nepal there isevery reason to expect social explosions, upheavals and an intensification of class struggle inconnection with the Constituent Assembly elections (if they actually take place) or in theiraftermath.One of the reasons for the paralysis of our Movement in the face of the emergence of a wrongline by the CPN(M) seems to be a difficulty in going beyond immediate policies and lookingdeeper into the ideological and political orientation propelling them. Instead of flipping fromMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

being concerned when the fruits of the revolution are being compromised to being reassuredwhen the conflicts sharpen and flipping back again with the rapid changes of the politicalsituation in Nepal, comrades must, to paraphrase Mao, take the appearance only as the thresholdand use dialectical materialism to understand the essence.It is true that those of us outside Nepal will never be able to fully understand the situation wellenough to have strongly formulated opinions on all the many specific questions that arise in thecourse of the revolution. Our debate with the CPN(M) is focused not on this or that tactic, but onthe fundamental questions of the revolution and, most specifically, what kind of state must beestablished by the revolution. It is because of fundamental errors on this levelbecause of theblurring or even negation of the fundamental goals of the revolutionthat the CPN(M) hasadopted first one then another erroneous and damaging tactic which has led away from theachievement of the revolutionary goals.What is the Goalto Restructure the State or to Smash It?One of the phrases that recurs in CPN(M) writings like a leitmotif is the call to restructure thestate. In fact, this very phrase sharply sums up what is wrong in the CPN(M)s politicalprogram. It is worthwhile reviewing the much-maligned ABCs of Marxism in this regard. Insumming up the experience of the different revolutions in 19th century Europe, Marx made thevery profound observation that all revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it(our emphasis).5 What did Marx mean by this?In particular he was referring to the fact that the several rounds of revolution in Europe andespecially France (1789, 1830, and 1848) had resulted in transforming the state machinery tocorrespond with the capitalist economic base and perfecting its ability to fulfill its role as theenforcer of bourgeois dictatorship. Quite clearly Marx is referring to the abolition of themonarchy in much of Europe and the generalization of bourgeois democracy as the perfectionof the capitalist dictatorship that the state represents. Later Marx specifically draws the lesson ofthe Commune which was not, in its essence, an effort to further perfect the bourgeois stateapparatus in France but rather a first, albeit halting, sometimes irresolute, and ultimatelyunsuccessful effort to smash the bourgeois state machinery and replace it with a different stateemerging from the proletarian revolutionary struggle.6At stake in the present debate in Nepal is whether, when all is said and done, the 10 years ofPeoples War will have served to smash the reactionary state machinery or perfect it. To put itquite bluntly, if the result of the war is the consolidation of a bourgeois republic, the tragic resultwill be that the sacrifice of the people will have served not to establish a new form of proletarianrule but only to modernize and perfect the very instrument that keeps them oppressed.The theoretical basis of this confusion between smashing and perfecting the state apparatuscan be seen quite clearly in the October 2005 CC resolution which resolved the two-linestruggle in the party and laid the basis for the Partys subsequent policies. In that resolution it isMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

argued that never in history has a monarchy disappeared without dissolving and defeating thearmy on which the state power is based.7This reflects a very wrong understanding of exactly what the historical experience has been, andspecifically the very experience Marx was referring to in the above-mentioned citation of theexperience of all previous revolutions. In most of the major countries of Europe the bourgeoisrepublican state was able to be consolidated without ever thoroughly destroying the stateapparatus associated with the monarchy for the very reason that bourgeois relations had grownup in the shell provided by the monarchy and that the earlier feudal monarchy had become abourgeois monarchy to varying degrees. This process, of course, did not take place smoothly andinvolved revolutions, advances and retreats. In Great Britain no revolution took place after theGlorious Revolution of 1688-89 and there was a gradual process of the monarchy being adaptedand remolded to be thoroughly in the service of capitalism, which is the situation right down totoday. In other countries such as France, Germany and Italy there were repeated revolutionaryexplosions and both bourgeois counter-revolutions (France 1814 or Germany after 1848), as wellas relatively peaceful bourgeois consolidation of the state system in the wake of revolutionaryoutbursts (Louis Napoleon in France, 1852). The result of this complex and varied processthroughout the 19th century was, however, exactly as Marx described itthe consolidation, theperfecting of the bourgeois democratic regime, with or without a residual monarchy, in all of theadvanced capitalist countries. Even in France, home of the quintessential bourgeois revolution,the reactionary army of the monarchy was never thoroughly smashed and the bourgeoisiefound it useful to preserve or reintroduce aspects of the monarchy into the bourgeois frameworkeven as it continued to struggle against remnants of feudalism at home and abroad, Napoleon Ibeing a very clear example. In short, stating that no republic has been established without thethoroughgoing destruction of the state apparatus serving the monarchy does not correspond tothe facts and serves to obscure the real tasks of the revolution in relation to the state. It is anillustration of the confusion and eclecticism that is reigning in the Party, where the correctrevolutionary strategy of new-democratic revolution is combined with a very reformist strategy(now masquerading as a tactic) of fighting for a transitional bourgeois republic.Furthermore, how are we to reconcile the description the CPN(M) offers with the experience ofthe Russian revolution? Is it not the case that the revolution of February 1917 established abourgeois republic in Russia without dissolving and defeating the army and bureaucracy of theTsar? In fact, the Provisional Government led by Kerensky very much represented theperfecting of the bourgeois state apparatus in republican form. It should not be any surprisethat this perfecting also includes incorporating and protecting many reactionary features of theprevious form of rule nor that some of the forces grouped around the Tsar also conspired againstthe Provisional government itself, such as in the Kornilov revolt in July of 1917 when thesesame forces tried to reverse the whole revolutionary process then going on in Russia. Leninsline was clearthe task of the revolution was not to consolidate a bourgeois republic but rather tofight to smash the bourgeois state apparatus and establish a completely different type of state.And this, of course, is exactly what he did.

March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

Similarly in more recent history we have seen monarchies that were overthrown and replacedwith different forms of a republic without requiring the smashing of the state. This can be seen inthe 1979 revolution in Iran when the autocratic regime of the Shah was overthrown and anIslamic Republic established. The state apparatus of the Shah, and especially the army, was mostdefinitely not smashed but rather reformed as part of the consolidation of the equally reactionaryIslamic Republic of Iran. And while the general historical tendency has been for monarchies togive rise to republics, there are cases where a bourgeois monarchy has served as a more suitableshell than a republic for perfecting the bourgeois democratic state. The clearest example is Spainwhere the Franco dictatorship had outlived its usefulness to the bourgeoisie and the best meansof avoiding revolutionary explosion and assuring a transition to a modern and effectivebourgeois democracy was through the vehicle of a restored monarchy in the person of JuanCarlos. And it must be said that the transition of modern Spain from fascist bourgeois state todemocratic monarchy was particularly successful and has indeed further perfected the state in theinterests of the bourgeoisie and the world imperialist system as a whole.So why does the CPN(M) insist so strongly on a portrayal based on the need to dissolve anddefeat the armed forces of the monarchy? Their analysis is consistent with the CPN(M)sconstant efforts to portray the basic struggle in the country as between the forces of reactiongrouped around the monarchy against the forces who stand for the Republic. In reality, thispicture actually combines several contradictions. The contradiction between the masses and theenemy classes (feudalism, comprador-bureaucrat capitalism and imperialism) is eclecticallymerged with a real but secondary contradiction among the reactionary classes themselves,between the diehard supporters of the monarchy and other sections of the exploiters who nowbelieve that the monarchy is a threat to their continued rule. Certainly the possibility of a moveagainst the Constituent Assembly by the monarchy and sections of the Army cannot bediscounted, but the main tendency within the ruling classes of Nepal and their foreign backers isnow to favor the Constituent Assembly and the declaration of a republic.There is a particular form of eclecticism at work here, where the CPN(M) takes the well-knownand central Marxist precept about the need to smash the existing state apparatus and narrows andmisapplies it to the institution of the monarchy. It appears to be very revolutionary to insist onthe thorough smashing of the monarchy but in fact this covers over that the target of the newdemocratic revolution is not the monarchy but rather the whole of the bureaucrat-comprador andfeudal classes and their foreign and imperialist backers.The monarchy in Nepal does need to be thoroughly uprooted by the new-democratic revolution.It is certainly no surprise that the reactionary classes will be inclined to incorporate manyelements of the monarchy or even the king himself into a new reactionary state. In this sense it isquite correct for the communists to call for the thorough eradication of the monarchy and leadthe masses in eradicating the monarchy as part of the new-democratic revolution and thebringing into power of a new state. But this is not what the comrades have been arguingordoing. Instead, they are continuing to insist that the complete eradication of the monarchy andMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

the establishment of pure (bourgeois) democracy with parties representing interests of thereactionary classes is a necessary preliminary step before the revolution can advance toward itsnew-democratic objectives, or redefining new democracy to being really no different thanbourgeois democracy. And it doesnt really matter if this step is considered a required strategicstep as is argued in New State or merely a tactical step as the 2005 resolution arguesineither of these interpretations the accomplishment of the republic is the necessary preliminary tofurther advance.To this we have two main responses. First, any reactionary bourgeois-comprador-feudal republicestablished in Nepal must and will incorporate all sorts of reactionary features of the previoussystem. This is because such a republic will and can only be, in the most fundamental sense, acontinuation of the previous (monarchical) state exactly because it will maintain and enforce therule of the same reactionary classes. Whether the king remains, the stench of feudalism of whichhe was the symbol and main representative can never be eliminated without the completion ofthe new-democratic revolution. Our second and more fundamental response is that the bourgeoisrepublic is, as Lenin put it, the most suitable shell for the growth of capitalism even if thebourgeoisie and the principal bourgeois parties (including the reformist and revisionist ones)may tremble with fear at the thought of standing alone without the protection of the monarchy.After all the monarchy has been the pillar of the whole comprador-bureaucrat feudal system inNepal and thus the bourgeoisie and even revisionists have an ambiguous attitude toward it. Thisis exactly Marxs point that hitherto existing revolutions have only perfected the bourgeois stateapparatus even if they have often done so in opposition to the bourgeoisie itself (or at least largesections of it). The bourgeoisies exploiting nature and its tendency to compromise with other,even more antiquated, forms of exploitation has often led to its own vacillation and sometimeseven paralysis, including in a revolution in which, objectively, its class and its mode ofproduction are the ultimate beneficiaries. Often in history the people have put the bourgeoisiein power even when the bourgeoisie, or most of them, were slinking in fear.In other words, the goal of pure bourgeois democracy, scrubbed clean of the odor ofmonarchy, is both unobtainable and undesirable. Yet rather than recognize, and proclaim to themasses, that the system that is presently being consolidated in Nepal through the whole processof the Constituent Assembly is exactly a kind of truncated, feudal-infested, national-betrayingdemocracy, the best that is obtainable without overthrowing the reactionary classes, instead ofextolling the democracy that was built in the course of the Peoples War and calling on theestablishment of that state system, that democracy and that dictatorship, on a countrywide level,the comrades in Nepal set out in quest for the Holy Grail of pure democracy, constantlydiscovering first one then another unfulfilled criteria of bourgeois democracy, and trying to focusthe fight on this ever-narrowing basis.Bourgeois Democracy and New DemocracyMao developed the theory of the new-democratic revolution (NDR) and clearly conceived of itas, in its first stage, bourgeois democratic in character in that its objective is to clear away theMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

fetters that keep the oppressed nations undeveloped and subjugated to foreign powersspecifically semi-feudal relations and comprador and bureaucrat capitalism dependent on andserving foreign imperialist powers and, importantly in the case of Nepal, neighboring India. TheNDR is not socialist in-so-far as it does not immediately seek to do away with all capitalistexploitation and, to a certain extent and to a certain degree, even opens the door for the growthof national capitalism. All this is well known.But Mao was also adamant that the NDR was not part of the old democratic revolution of thebourgeoisie but a part of the world proletarian revolution whose aim is socialism and ultimatelycommunism. This was not just an empty proclamation on Maos part, but a reflection of the classanalysis he had made of China and his programmatic understanding of the tasks of the NDR.And he gave great emphasis to the socialist elements within the NDR which lay the basis forthe transformation of the NDR into a future socialist revolution.Today Nepal is at a crossroads between new democracy and bourgeois democracy of the oldtype, with all that that means in the conditions of an oppressed country. Under thesecircumstances one would have expected the communists to be clarifying this choice to themasses, exposing the sham and reactionary nature of the democracy proclaimed by thereactionary classes and their foreign backers, extolling the accomplishments already achieved inthe course of the NDR in the countryside and calling upon the people to institute this systemthroughout Nepal. But instead what is objectively a clear choice has been blurred and muddled,in particular by the propaganda, slogans and actions of the communists themselves in their questfor pure democracy.When we take a concrete look at Nepal and how the revolution has developed, we can see thatthere are a number of crucial questions which are bourgeois-democratic in nature but challengethe very framework of the bureaucrat-comprador, semi-feudal system dominating in Nepal.Several of these questions which have been so powerfully expressed in revolutionary struggleduring the ten years of Peoples War are 1) the fight to eliminate the oppression of women, 2) thefight to definitively destroy the caste system, 3) the fight for the equality of nationalities, 4) therealization of land to the tiller, and 5) establishing real independence from India and theimperialist powers. None of these questions are, by themselves, socialist in character but they arevery much at the heart of the new-democratic revolution. They can only be achieved by therevolution led by the proletariat through mobilizing and relying on the people. Furthermore, eachof these contradictions and the struggle to resolve them carries within it seeds that lay the basisfor the future transformation of the revolution beyond the democratic stage toward the socialistand communist future.It is quite clear that a reactionary bourgeois, comprador-feudal regime, republic or not, willnever thoroughly solve any of the democratic questions mentioned above. Such a regime mighttry to mitigate some of these contradictions but ultimately cannot succeed, as can be seen inthe example of neighboring India. The worlds largest democracy is a good illustration of thereactionary nature of bureaucrat-comprador, semi-feudal democracy. In India, casteMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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discrimination is formally illegal and reservations are set aside in government jobs for theoppressed classes, women have legal equality, and the equality of languages and the secularcharacter of the state is formally proclaimed. But everyone knows how far the formalproclamations are from the daily reality of the humiliation and oppression of Dalits andAdivasis, constant Hindu domination periodically punctuated by communal massacres, thesubservience of women highlighted by frequent dowry murders, and the list could go on and on.In reality, in a few short years in Nepal, the unleashing of the masses in the Peoples Warbrought about transformations of the relations among the people and of many of thecorresponding ideas that were never accomplished in bourgeois comprador, semi-feudal India.For example, the very large number of young women volunteering to serve in the PeoplesLiberation Army, many of whom came to be leaders, is linked to the fact that the newrevolutionary order, or new democracy taking root in the countryside, made an immediate anddramatic impact on the status of womenchild marriage was effectively abolished in deed as wellas in law, anti-women louts were disciplined, many young people chose their own spousewithout concern for caste or family. Can India, where over 90 percent of marriages respect castebarriers, say the same? One of the great transformations in the Nepalese countryside has been thebody blow to the caste system. While almost all political parties in Nepal declare in words theiropposition to the caste system, only the revolution was able to make a real dent in this centuriesold practice. The formerly downtrodden, now standing up tall and proud, look anyone directly inthe eye. These are the real democratic tasks that the revolution already accomplished to animportant degree and which can be put forward as a model to the whole country. Ironically, thesearch for real democracy, which can only be considered a code word for thoroughlyimplemented (real) bourgeois democracy, has undercut the very power of these revolutionarydemocratic accomplishments exactly because real democracy cannot in Nepal, anymore than ithas in India or other third world countries, thoroughly uproot these archaic and backward formsof oppression, and indeed real democracy generally makes no such claims. Rather, realdemocracy focuses on the form of state, and especially multiparty elections, to whichdemocracy is systematically reduced.Experience all over the world has shown again and again that multiparty elections will notprevent the political power, the dictatorship, from being firmly in the hands of the exploitingclasses. The advantages these classes hold in experience in ruling, education, finances,connections to the imperialist world system (and in Nepals case to the Indian ruling class) givethese classes and their representatives a great advantage in the electoral contest, even a fairone by bourgeois-democratic standards, not to mention all of the extra democratic features thatmost often accompany elections in third world countriesballot stuffing, police intimidation,foreign intrigue, etc. And, of course, there is always the ultimate veto of the reactionary armedforces that can be imposed in the highly unlikely event that the electoral results actually did posea threat to the interests of the ruling class and their foreign backers. We are about to witness thissame process in Nepal. In the conditions of today it is extremely unlikely that the CPN(M) willbe a majority in the upcoming Constituent Assembly elections, and the two-thirds majoritynecessary to make any substantial changes to the interim constitution is impossible. The mostlikely result is that the CPN(M) will be defeated fairly at the electionsafter all, if theMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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reactionaries were not confident of this result they would simply postpone the elections as theydid in June 2007and the legitimacy of the newly consolidated reactionary state will emergereinforced. If in the extremely unlikely event that the Party did come to occupy the key positionsof government through this electoral process the very alliance required, the entanglement inbourgeois political institutions and with the international community will ensure that there isno transfer of power to the proletariat and the oppressed classes and no basis for the state to carryout the revolutionary transformation of society.We would hope that the comrades of the CPN(M) will not accept the verdict of the ballot boxdespite their repeated pledges to do so and despite the immense pressure that they will be underto accept the rules of bourgeois elections. But even in the welcome event the comrades doreject such an outcome, they will be doing so on substantially weakened grounds having lent theauthority of the Party to the legitimacy of this whole process. And there remains the underlyingproblem of the strategic conception and strategic goal of bourgeois democracy as a transitionalstate, an orientation which is constantly reasserting itself in the domain of tactical choices andpolicies. Even if, belatedly, the Party decides to take a different pathand we will continue tostruggle for precisely such a radical shift in directionpressure to return to the parliamentaryroad will continue to come from this very unclarity on strategic objectives. It wont be enough tosimply adjust tactics once again; a real repudiation of the approach and thinking that led to thisimpasse is required.Proportional Bourgeois Democracy or the New-Democratic System?Nepal even more than many other third world countries is a prison house of nations. Theminority of mainstream Nepalese has ruled and run roughshod over the majority of thepopulation at least since the establishment of the Gurkha kingdom in 1768 by Prithur NarayanShah. A great achievement of the revolution has been to awaken the oppressed nationalities ofNepal all across the country and to organize them into the ranks of the revolution. As therevolution developed, organs of power were established in the areas of concentration of differentnationalities, for example the Magarat Autonomous Region that was established in the RolpaRokum heartland of the revolution in western Nepal. Certainly we would like to understand thisexperience better and learn more about specific forms of state and mass organizations in relationto overcoming national oppression. However, it is clear that these forms generally met withwidespread approval of the masses.We would like to emphasize the obviousnone of this was possible without the organizedstrength of the armed masses and specifically the victories of the PLA over the armed forces ofthe old reactionary state. It was on the basis of clearing away the police stations, courts, jails aswell as the organized bands of reactionaries and lumpens that it was possible for peoples rule tobe established and give expression to the long-smothered aspirations of the minoritynationalities.There is a great deal of experience in how the problems of minority nationalities have beenMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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addressed as part of the proletarian dictatorship in the course of the 20th century. Thisexperience needs to be deeply summed up as part of the broader experience of socialistrevolution. One of the key summations we have drawn from the overall experience of theproletarian revolution is, as Comrade Bob Avakian has put it, the need for a solid core with a lotof elasticity. That is, with proletarian authority established and a firm grip on state powermaintained, it is possible and necessary to allow a flowering of diverse political opinions andpolitical groupings. Our limited understanding of the experience of peoples rule in RolpaRokum and elsewhere in liberated Nepal suggests that this describes at least in part the processthat was taking place there. The authority of the revolution based on representing the highestinterests of the masses and the military strength of the PLAthat is, the dictatorship over thereactionary classescreated the conditions that allowed a real flowering of political life,including awakening diverse and sometimes even centrifugal forces among the different nationalgroupings. As long as the authority of the Party was firmly in command and providing ananchor, such centrifugal forces did not threaten the advance of the revolution but gave itadditional strength and vitality.8It is well known that in the most recent period following the signing of the Comprehensive PeaceAgreement and the confinement of the PLA in cantonments, there have been some very negativedevelopments, especially in the Madesh (also called the Terai) region of south-eastern Nepal.The Terai is home to a large percentage of the Nepalese people and is the most important area ofgrain production in the country. It is also an area where most of the people have suffereddifferent forms of national oppression at the hands of the central state, which has favored thepopulation groups historically based in the hilly regions.In particular, the Madeshis have been raising the demand for full proportionality in the new state,demanding that they have representation in the Constituent Assembly, state jobs, and so forththat corresponds to their share of the population. The CPN(M) had become a target of thismovement because of its earlier endorsement of the interim constitution which, at the demand ofthe Seven Party Alliance, refused to accept a proportional system. Demagogues were able towhip up the national sentiment of the Madeshis against the CPN(M) and even murdered manycomrades, especially in the Gaur massacre of March 31, 2007. The CPN(M) summed up that ithad been an error to go along with the interim constitution, which had not provided forproportional representation, and the Party has since raised this as the crucial element in solvingthe problems of the Madesh and other oppressed nationalities.The CPN(M) has focused its demands concerning the new constitution on the creation of afederal republic where the rights of all of the national groupings (and, in some cases, castegroupings) are assured on a proportional basis. Indeed, it is possible to find many referenceswhere it is claimed that Once the Federal Structure of the national and regional autonomousrepublics is ensured, the Terai problem and other tensions will also be settled.9We are not at all convinced that regional autonomy and a proportional federal structure willsolve the problems of the oppressed nationalities. Rather this insistence is one more indication ofMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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the CPN(M) losing sight of the central question of which class rules in alliance with which otherclasses and instead focusing on the form of rule, in this case federal or proportional, and treatingthis above and outside of its class context.Certainly measures such as regional autonomy can and must, under a state system with theleadership of the working class, play an important role in combating national inequality andmobilizing the masses of the minority nationalities in the revolution. As noted above, this is ourunderstanding of what actually happened to a large degree in the base areas under the leadershipof the CPN(M) where, it must be noted once again, the state power was based on the strength ofthe PLA. In the Madesh as well, during the course of the Peoples War, although there werecertainly efforts by reactionaries and forces backed by India to try to divide the masses alongnational lines and foment opposition to the Party, there was not the kind of fratricidal conflictamong the nationalities that has appeared in the last period. Instead, the demand for therecognition of the national rights of the Madeshis mainly took place within and on the basis ofthe political power that the revolution had established. In the Madesh as well as elsewhere in thecountry the PLA included young men and women from many different national groupings.Without this firm political power, without this solid core of proletarian leadership and authority,it is not possible, and indeed it has not been possible, to maintain and advance the unity of thepeople and take real concrete measures to uproot national inequality and injustice.Proportionality cannot by itself be the key link nor be the central solution to solving nationaloppression or ensuring the unity of the masses. The proletariat alone (and those from other stratawon to and trained in its outlook) can rise above national considerations and actually oppose allnational discrimination and injustices. If the masses are told to elect their representativesaccording to their national or specific group interests, there will everywhere be conflict evenamong the masses of the oppressed themselves. For example, the Madeshis in the East will comeinto conflict with the Tharus in the West, Dalits will be fighting the small peasant landholdersand the Badis will be in conflict with everybody else. There can never be a solid voluntary unityof the oppressed if this unity is looked at or conceived as a kind of coalition of differentoppressed peoples and sectors. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the objective contradictionsthat exist in class society will assert themselves and the masses will be divided up in theirspecific tents. Bourgeois parliamentary democracy will fuel this tendency.Once the problem of nationalities is restricted, confined and channeled into the bourgeois arena,once the idea is enforced that each nationality, sub nationality, caste or grouping should befighting for the representation of their own narrow interests in competition with and oppositionto those of other nationalities and groupings, the result will be what can be seen so clearly inneighboring India, where groups are constantly mobilized to fight for the reservation of jobs orparliamentary seats. Such measures have not made any real dent in the whole system of nationaland caste oppression. Indeed, bloody massacres are common in the fair competition ofnationalities, while real inequality remains intact. We doubt very much that a federal republic ofNepal will have any better results than those of India.

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Again, it is extremely painful to watch the achievements of the revolution being dismembered onthe altar of a bourgeois republic (federal and proportional or not). Instead of the Party promotingthe essence of the state system that emerged in the Peoples War (new-democratic dictatorship)and calling for that state system to be established through the whole country, it is promoting theform that peoples power had developed in Nepal (autonomous republics) as the solution todemocratizing the republic that is being established by the bourgeoisie. It is an arena that willnever unleash and unite the enthusiasm of the masses on a correct basis.Land to the TillerWhile the CPN(M) still maintains Land to the Tiller as a slogan in its electoral campaign,mobilizing the rural masses around this central demand is not at the heart of the Partys work inthe rural areas. This is all the more surprising since the agrarian revolution, more than any othersingle factor, drove the whole process of Peoples War forward. Of course, the CPN(M) doescall for land reform in its program and it is quite probable that the new bourgeois republic ofNepal will carry out some kind of land reform. But experience in many countries has shown thedifference between an incomplete, undemocratic, bureaucratic land reform organized incooperation with the ruling classes and a real agrarian revolution such as Mao carried out inChina, that relied upon unleashing the enthusiasm of the peasantry, especially its mostdowntrodden sections.10 Once again, neighboring India provides a very good showcase.Significant land reform was carried out in India, but it was done in a way that compromised withthe feudal classes. It was very unevenly applied and scarcely touched some areas, keeping thepoorest sections of the masses from obtaining much if any land. Most importantly from theviewpoint of the ruling classes, it did everything to avoid revolutionary upheaval in thecountryside. In South Africa, also, land reform was declared a national priority but, more thanten years after the end of the apartheid regime, the great majority of the land is still in the handsof a minority of white farmers.On this question also the two types of democracybourgeois democracy and new democracy ledby the proletariatstand in sharp contrast. Because of the central role of private property in thecapitalist system, because in countries like Nepal the bourgeoisie has links to landed property,and because of the common fear of the rural poor among all of the exploiting classes, thebourgeoisie will back away from a really revolutionary reform program, even though, by itself,land to the tiller does not escape from the bounds of bourgeois democracy.11 In the conditions ofthe oppressed nations today, it is the proletariat alone that can accomplish this most centraldemocratic demand in a revolutionary way and, in so doing, unite the great majority of thepeasantry and broad sections of other classes as well who can understand that this is a crucialmeasure to really lay the basis for an independent and rapidly developing country. Furthermore,agrarian revolution can lay the basis for rapidly developing the voluntary cooperation andcollectivization that plays such a central role in propelling the revolution beyond new democracyto the socialist stage.Here again the problem of the Madesh is of particular importance because it is in the fertileMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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plains where there is a great deal of feudal ownership and where there is a particularly importantproblem of uniting the masses and opposing different kinds of national and caste oppression.Furthermore, the land revolution could have a very important impact on the national economy aswell if it were to liberate the capacity and enthusiasm of the masses to produce. It is possible tosee how a revolutionary land policy based especially among the poor could unite the majority ofthe population despite the long-standing national oppression and divisions. Isnt the agrarianrevolution also key to uniting the Madesh with the rest of the country? So while the CPN(M)maintains Land to the Tiller in its program, this is not what is at the center of its currentapproach to the Madesh or other rural districts. Instead the main appeal is to proportionality andfederalism that has not united and cannot unite the masses of the poor around the proletariat andinstead pushes them into the arms of the exploiters (large and small) of their respectivenationalities.The very experience of the revolution in Nepal, as well as previous historical experience,demonstrates that it is the state power of the proletariat that makes possible the united front,especially the alliance of the workers and peasantry. Lenin had made the same point on the eveof the Russian Revolution: To smash this machine, to break it up, is truly in the interest of thepeople, of their majority, of the workers and most of the peasants, is the precondition for a freealliance of the poor peasants and the proletarians, whereas without such an alliance democracy isunstable and socialist transformation is impossible.12The actual history of the Nepalese revolution has confirmed this orientation. It has been on thebasis of clearing away the authority of the old state, and most centrally, the presence and reachof its military authority, that it became possible to unite the great majority of the populationaround the leadership of the proletariat. But once this proletarian authority is undermined andwith the old army and old police force again in command, the unity of the masses will also beundermined, and the masses will have little choice but to seek to protect their interests againstand in competition with other sections of the oppressed masses and come under the wing of thebourgeoisie.On the Constitution and Class RuleIn their reply to the RCP, the Nepalese comrades write, Your letter has very apprehensivelyraised one question. If the enemy accepts your demand, just for example, a constituent assembly,you are obligated to agree with it; otherwise you will lose the confidence of the masses. Weappreciate your anxiety. But we understand that a constituent assembly in itself is not a solution,but its political content can be. For example, if the constituent assembly can ensure thedissolution of the royal army, the reorganization of the national army under our leadership, theimplementation of revolutionary land reform based upon the policy of land to the tiller, the rightof nations to self-determination, an end to social discrimination, development and prosperity,etc., why should one oppose it?The problem is that the Constituent Assembly will not and cannot carry out the above-mentionedMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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tasks. Does anyone really think it possible that the CA will lead to the dissolution of the royalarmy (and not just a name change), let alone the reorganization of the national army under theleadership of the CPN(M)? No! This is just as impossible as the claims of the old revisionistprogram of the Communist Party USA which proposed to do away with capitalist exploitationthrough a constitutional amendment. And if there was any doubt as to what is possible and whatis impossible, it is sufficient to regard the actual process as it has unfolded. It has been the PLAwhich has been put in cantonments and largely disarmed while the only important change for theRNA was to drop the royal in its name.So the question is not why should one oppose a Constituent Assembly that could accomplishthe tasks of the new-democratic revolution, but rather why should one promote an illusion thatcannot be fulfilled?Even now, when the results of this process are coming into focus, the CPN(M) continues tospread these illusions. For example,It is aimed that the political crisis will be resolved by writing a new constitution which can pavethe way for a new progressive system in Nepal that can lead the country to forward progress andfurther advancement by creating a society in which the exploitation of man by man in all formsis abolished.13Thus we see that the CPN(M) is arguing rather clearly, in public and informally, that it ispossible that the Constituent Assembly process can consolidate a system which can evolvepeacefully toward socialism and communism. Of course, the Party keeps open the possibility thatdie-hard elements, most especially the monarchy, can be expected to oppose such a constitution,in which case the use of force by the masses will be justifiable and necessary.14In this way, the discussion of the provisions and wording of a future constitution displaces whatreally is the central question: on whose power will the new state be based? Generally speaking, abourgeois constitution will uphold the sovereignty of the people, proclaim the equality of allits citizens enshrined in the principle of one person, one vote, proclaim rights of free speechand assembly, and so forth. It is also quite unlikely, to say the least, that the constitutionresulting from the CA process will attack in a fundamental way the property of the exploitingclasses.15While a constitution can play an important role in any political system, it is not the promises ofthe constitution that will lead to a society without class exploitation if the army is in the hands ofthe exploiting classes and if the principal means of production are under their ownership andcontrol. Indeed, the role of the constitution in any bourgeois republic is precisely to ensure thatthe political system does not interfere with and in fact serves the underlying economic system ofexploitation. The democratic rights granted to the people are within this context and restricted bythis reality. When the professed rights of the people come into conflict with the imperatives ofthe socio-economic system based on exploitation, it is the interests of the system of exploitationMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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that trumpoverrule the rights of the people. The comrades of the CPN(M) point to thepossibility of a constitution coming out of this Constituent Assembly which will institutionalizethe victories of the Peoples War. But these elections are being held under the supervision of theinternational community (meaning the world imperialist system and India), with the NepalArmy guarding the premises, and the television and newspapers for the most part firmly in thehands of the exploiting classes. The result of these elections under these conditions cannot openthe way to socialism, and to argue that they can is either demagogy or self-deception.Revolutionary PracticeIt is the strategy of a transitional (bourgeois) republic that is driving and directing the tactics,and not the other way around. It is true that any revolutionary process will combine diverseforms of struggle, and it can be easily seen that revolutionary war may pass through periods ofceasefire and negotiation. And conversely, as we have seen from diverse experience historicallyand internationally, seemingly revolutionary tactics have been, and often are, used in the serviceof thoroughly non-revolutionary strategies such as fighting to negotiate, calling the massesinto the streets to serve as pressure for bourgeois electoral gains, and so forth.16Nor is the essence of the question, even now, the fact that the Party is up to its neck inelectoralism and parliamentarism. A revolutionary road to the bourgeois republic would not beany better than the path of compromise and collaboration that we have witnessed over the lasttwo years. But there is a connectionthe goal of a bourgeois republic and, we must add, onewhich is effectively cemented into the existing imperialist world order, will mean that a certaintype of tactics will tend to predominate and that impulses to go in a more revolutionary direction,whether arising from the masses, the Party rank and file or sections of the leadership, will tend tobe smothered. Indeed, the period of the last two years has also been one in which repeated plansand promises of the leadership to bring forward the masses to assert their class interests havegone unfulfilled. This should not be seen as a result of willful deception. Rather, it is theinevitable result of the class nature of the objectivethe bourgeois republicimposing itself onthe choice of tactics to follow. Nor are we arguing for more revolutionary tactics divorcedfrom a rectification on the level of strategy and goal. History has also been full of insurrectionswhich have ultimately served as a left cover for cloudy or non-revolutionary objectives.Indeed, in Central America in the 1980s, different types of left as well as the more dominantrightist tactics were employed. We will again call attention to the line which emerged in theCommunist Party of the Philippines pushed by Villalobos. It had the merit of articulating clearlythe short path to partial victory which he specifically contrasted to the Maoist path ofprotracted peoples war for complete victory, which Villalobos considered unreachable and/orundesirable.17 In other words, to focus the discussion with the CPN(M) principally over tactics isto mistake the symptom for the disease and to reverse cause and effect.Whos Fooling Whom?One of the most painful things for friends of the Nepalese revolution to watch is the way inMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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which the army of the people has been largely disarmed and herded into cantonments isolatedfrom the people, while the reactionary armed forces, now renamed Nepal Army, whichpreviously could not leave heavily fortified barracks except in large convoys, are now free toroam about the countryside. Also very significant is the reestablishment of hated police posts inthe very heart of the former base areas, while the structures of peoples rule built up in the courseof the Peoples War are dismantled.The origin of this situation predates even the April 2006 upsurgeit can be found clearly in theproposal reprinted in The Worker no. 9 where the Party proposes that the PLA and the RNA bedemobilized and a new national army formed. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement has this asa cornerstone.For a long time the CPN(M) would tell worried comrades that any merger of the two armieswould come on the basis of the authority of the PLA and the Party and would be under itsleadership. Of course, no integration of that type was even considered for a fleeting moment bythe reactionary classes. On the contrary, the reactionary classes and their backers have beenclear, ironically far more so than our comrades, on the central role of the armed forces in thestate. The CPA legitimized the monopoly of force of the NA which was, after all, allowed toopenly keep the great bulk of its weapons, granted responsibilities for controlling the countrysborders and transportation routes, and, generally speaking, left free to march about the countryarmed. In January 2008, the Army Chief of Staff made a clear statement that he would refuse theintegration of PLA fighters in the NA.The response of the CPN(M) has included some very pointed and correct exposure of the NepalArmy. For example, Chairman Prachandas statement, reprinted in The Red Star no. 3,rhetorically asked why a gang of murderers is fit to be part of the national army but not the sonsand daughters of the people who fought for liberation. But this is exactly the point. The NationalArmy will have only one central roleto maintain and enforce the rule of the exploiting classes.That the CPN(M) would demand that the fighters of the PLA be integrated into such an army isitself a real indication of how far the Party has departed from a Marxist understanding of thestate. Again, the reactionaries have no such unclarity. They are determined to maintain a tightgrip on the state apparatus and are not about to let large numbers of PLA fighters join the army,at least not unless and until the PLA had given adequate proof that it has definitively andthoroughly abandoned its goal of revolutionsomething which has not happened and must not beallowed to happen. So again the CPN(M) has allowed the debate to be firmly circumscribed bythe reactionary classes. The question was shaking Nepal at the time of the collapse of theabsolute monarchywhich state and which army, the old state of the king and the exploitingclasses based on the hated Royal Nepal Army or the new state which had been emerging in thecountryside based on the strength of the PLA, should consolidate its rule throughout the country?This has transformed into: is the PLA sufficiently committed to real democracy for it to bedissolved into the Nepal Army or will it have to be dissolved by some other means? Each answeris worse than the other.

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Arming the Masses with the Truth or Sowing Deliberate Confusion?

In their response to our earlier letter the CPN(M) argues that some of their current positions maynot appear clear because of the need to dissimulate in the eyes of the international and domesticenemies, but that their comrades should not be worried because the Party is clear on where thestruggle must go. They say: Yes, there are some confusing positions in our interpretations, inseveral contexts. We think sometimes they are necessary. If we can confuse our enemies and theinternational community with our tactical dealings, it can divide them to a certain extent, whichwill benefit our revolution. Problems will arise only if the Party of the proletariat itself isconfused.This reasoning is wrong on a whole number of levels. Even if it were the case that the Partyleadership was clear and united on the goals of NDR, socialism and communism, it would stillbe necessary to educate and arm the masses to understand the difference between a reactionarybourgeois solution to the countrys problems and a radically different solution led by aproletarian party and based on the masses of people. The love and support of the masses acquiredin the Peoples War is a precious achievement, but it is no substitute for their conscious trainingand their learning to perceive, beneath the honey-coated words of democracy, the real classnature of every party and political figure. Otherwise there is the danger that loyalty can becomeblind, and that the masses who were the bedrock of the Peoples War will look to the Partymainly as a protector of their most narrow and immediate interests, interests that might andsometimes do come into conflict with other sections of the masses. How will it be possible forthe masses to be won to the need for further struggle and sacrifice if the goal of this struggle isnot clear? Are we really to believe the masses are quite clear on the goals of revolution or thatthey will reach this understanding spontaneously, without systematic training by thecommunists?It is enough to read the Partys own publications or the interviews with different leaders to seethat the Party itself is not at all so clear on the crucial questions of democracy, state and so forth.Often vital questions of political orientation and policy are presented as a mere question oftactics: either the revolution will proceed smoothly to the republic or, if this process is interferedwith by the reactionary classes, it will thus become necessary for the revolution to advance bymore confrontational means. This leaves out the basic question of the revolutionary goal. Inother words, the main question is not a peaceful or non-peaceful transition to a federaldemocratic republic, but rather what type of republic needs to be established (what class willrule) and specifically how can there be a seizure of power by masses led by a proletarianvanguard. This is objectively the question before the society, but it is not what is beingpresented.Further, the idea that ideological acrobatics are necessary in order to confuse the class enemy isextremely naive at best. No major move by the CPN(M) goes unobserved by the class enemy. Ifthe Party suspends negotiations or leaves the government, the other side is extremely attentive tothe possible implications of such moves and discusses it from every angle in the press and inMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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their semi-public think tanks such as the International Crisis Group, which has been particularlywell-informed about the situation in Nepal.18 In fact it is the masses, friends of the Party and theranks of the Party themselves who are most often deceived by the Partys double language. Forexample, the main representatives of the reactionary classes in Nepal and internationally seemedmuch clearer than many comrades that the CPN(M)s decision in September 2007 to leave thegovernment, and its threats to call the masses out into the streets, probably did not mean a basicreversal of the road to the Constituent Assembly and the bourgeois republic. And in fact, thesereactionaries were rightthe goal and the attraction of going for the bourgeois republicreimposed itself and molded the Partys choice of tactics.This is not to say that all of the masses are happy with the direction the Party has taken or thatthey will not find different ways to convey their discontent. But even assuming that the newregime which emerges from the Constituent Assembly really does provide the formal right toorganized political expression, and even assuming that these formal rights exist in the rural areasas well as the cities as is rarely the case in the third world, it is very difficult to see how, withoutan organized and coherent leadership, the growing discontent of the masses will be able to beexpressed in a concrete political program. This is another example of the falsity of the promise ofbourgeois democracy and how really unequal the masses of people are in the competition ofpolitical forces. In the name of preserving the rights of the masses to supervise the state throughmultiparty competition, the CPN(M) is actually taking away the rights of the massesestablished through the Peoples War to have political institutions and political representationthat truly represents their own class interests as opposed to the interests of other class forces andagainst the interests of the reactionary classes.In fact, history provides many indications of what happens to the people once the leadership hasembarked on a course that contradicts and undoes the struggle the masses have been waging.Massive discontent and widespread demoralization does not easily transform into consciouspolitical action. In Palestine, Zimbabwe, Guatemala, to name but a few situations from morerecent history, compromise political solutions and the reversal of promises and slogans to whichthe masses had rallied (remember that even Yasser Arafat started out proclaiming revolution tillvictory) were not effectively countered. Instead a few frustrated elements are more likely tosplit and lash out without being able to develop a coherent program. But this does not make thereformist compromise any more correct or any more legitimate. Under the slogan of the rightsof the masses a new-old state will stand apart from the masses and over them.There is a reason why double talk, the art of saying one thing and doing another, corresponds tothe reactionary classes and cannot characterize the policy of the proletarian party. First of all, thereactionary classes cannot hope to survive except by deceiving the masses whose interests theycan never represent. Communists, on the other hand, have everything to gain the more theproletariat and the masses of people understand the society and the tasks of the revolution.Helping the masses to get this kind of understanding is a crucial task of the vanguard party, but itis not an easy one. There are all sorts of prejudices and blinders that keep the masses from seeingthe real features of the society. After all, if the masses were clearly able to see their own classMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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interests, having their own vanguard party would be far less necessary. But we know fromexperience in all countries that this is most definitely not the case and that the massesdesperately need communist leadership that can help sort out the fundamental contours of classinterests in a complicated world.We are not so nave as to believe that communist revolutionaries can or must reveal all of theirplans and thinking on all subjects on all occasions. At the same time, in a fundamental sense andfrom a strategic viewpoint, communists enthusiastically uphold the Communist Manifestosfamous statement, The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. What possiblestrategic advantage could the communists achieve by saying publicly to the masses over andover again that they are only about winning a majority in the electoral arena, or that their goal ispure democracy? Where is the training of the masses about the real class nature of such pure(bourgeois) democracy? This is no less of a task in Nepal, where a comprador-feudal bourgeoisrepublic is on the horizon, than it is in the West where bourgeois democracy is the most commonform of rule of the capitalist class. In fact, communists in a country like Nepal, where there arecrucial bourgeois-democratic tasks to be accomplished through revolution, have a specialresponsibility to combat bourgeois-democratic illusions and show the real class nature of thebourgeois democracies of the West being upheld as a model.Togliatti and ThorezThere have been some rather astounding statements made about the path-breaking nature of theCPN(M)s decision to go for a democratic republic. In his May 1, 2007 speech, ChairmanPrachanda even goes so far as to say, The twelve point agreement was a wonderful andunprecedented type of understanding in history. The twentieth century never saw such a type ofunique understanding that has been proved in history. Unfortunately, this is not the case.19We say unfortunately because there are many tragic examples during the 20th century whenthe communists abandoned their struggle for political power, demobilized their independentarmed forces, and restricted their struggle to within the bourgeois-democratic framework of theenemy. In some of these cases the Communist Parties maintained or even expanded aconsiderable influence over the working class and other sections of the masses and often hadsignificant representation in parliament.Two of the most significant cases were the experiences of the Communist Party of Italy and theCommunist Party of France in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The history ofFrance and Italy diverge, especially in that France was occupied early in the war by NaziGermany while Italy was allied with Germany in the war, but in both cases the CommunistParties had rallied important sections of the proletariat and the masses to wage armed struggleagainst foreign occupiers and the domestic fascist rulers.20 At the end of the war these partiesemerged with immense popularity, whereas almost all of the bourgeois political formations werethoroughly discredited by their collaboration with the fascist powers and/or their incapacity towage any resolute struggle against them. In both Italy and France, the Communist Parties hadMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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important armed contingents under their leadership. Many people forget that it was the partisansled by the Communist Party of Italy who captured Mussolini and hung his body in a publicsquare in Milan amidst massive popular celebration.However, despite the revolutionary movement that swept Europe with the collapse of the fascistpowers, despite the fact that the bourgeois state apparatus had been discredited and greatlyweakened through the course of the war, and despite the tremendous prestige that the SovietUnion under the leadership of Stalin then enjoyed, these Communist Parties disbanded theirarmed forces and took part in the provisional governments established in both of these countriesunder the watchful supervision of the occupying forces (mainly the U.S. and British). Mostsignificantly, these parties accepted the political framework of bourgeois democracy. They didnot, however, in words at least, drop the strategic objective of the dictatorship of theproletariat (it was only two decades later that this open admission of revisionism was to takeplace). Rather, participation in the bourgeois institutions was presented as a tactic whichwould, somehow, open the way to a later seizure of power by the proletariat. Nor should it beassumed that the entrance of the Communist Parties into the governments in Italy and Francemeant that this was a period of calm devoid of class struggle. On the contrary, those first postwaryears were marked by extremely acute struggles, general strikes, powerful movements aimed atpunishing collaborators with the fascists and so forth. In other words, participation in thebourgeois institutions did not preclude struggle and did not remove the necessity of thebourgeoisie of these countries (egged on and backed to the hilt by the unmatched military andeconomic might of U.S. imperialism) to hit hard at the communist parties as part of their effort tore-consolidate a bourgeois order after the havoc of world war and in the face of the revolutionaryrestlessness of the masses. The Communist Parties were held in great esteem by the workingclass at that time because of their role during the war and because even while they werefollowing an objectively capitulationist policy they were also in sharp conflict with the rulingclass both inside and outside parliament. In other words, these parties continued to uphold thegoal of the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism and communism. In 1947 the communistswere driven out of the government as part of the beginning of the Cold War.The point of this historical reminder is that there is indeed nothing so new, let alone so positive,about an agreement of communist forces to abandon their struggle for power and enter bourgeoisinstitutions. Nor does such a step mean that the communists did not come sharply into conflictwith the main representatives of the bourgeoisie. Nor should we assume that the objectivecircumstances were easier for the communists in Italy or France than they are today in Nepal.For example, in both Italy and France there was a heavy presence of the Allied military forcesafter the war. It is easy to imagine the justifications and the rationales that were offered to thosewho disapproved or were uncomfortable with what, in retrospect, can be seen as a decisive steptoward revisionism.The decisive question, then as now, is the political and ideological line of the communists. Weare not in a position to say exactly what tactics the communists in France or Italy should haveadopted. But it is possible to say that their decision to accept the legitimacy of theMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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reestablishment of the bourgeois order after World War 2 was objectively a tremendous serviceto the bourgeoisie at exactly the moment when the bourgeoisie was battered and in real difficultyin reorganizing its rule and ramming it down the throats of the masses. Once the basicframework of the bourgeois state institutions is accepted as legitimate, then the efforts of thecommunists to organize the proletariat and the masses to exert their interests within thisframework (through both electoral and non-electoral means) has the objective effect ofstrengthening and perfecting these reactionary institutions themselves. Here we can only touchon the important international dimension and specifically the line of Stalin and the CPSU in thewhole period before, during and after the Second World War. A more thorough discussion wouldshow that this abandonment of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat and adoption ofthe framework of bourgeois democracy is linked to the position adopted by the CPSU and theComintern concerning the united front against fascism and the fight to preserve and/or restorebourgeois democracy as a necessary stage at that time.21Rewriting Party HistoryWe were disappointed that the response of the CPN(M) to our original letter of October 2005focused to a considerable degree on a defense of its past practice and tried to use the experienceof the whole trajectory of the Party since 1996 to the present as an answer to the arguments ourParty and others have raised. Simply put: because the Peoples War has developed this far itshows the correctness of the Partys ideological and political line.First of all, the fallacy of such a method of reasoning is easy to see. Even if the Party had beenpreviously right on every question of politics and ideology (which we will see is far from thecase), that would neither be a guarantee that the Party would be right on every question in thefuture nor a reason for not addressing in substance the arguments about what needs to be donenow. The fact, for example, that the Party was correct in initiating and waging a Peoples War inno way proves that it is correct in abandoning it.Further, the account of the disagreements between our two parties and the description of theCPN(M)s own history is not accurate. One important point to clarify is that our Party did notoppose the CPN(M)s participation in parliament in the early 1990s. For one thing, our ownknowledge of the situation in Nepal at the time did not provide enough basis to have a clearopinion on that policy. Furthermore, our Party did not and does not subscribe to the view ofmany other parties in the Maoist movement that the boycott of parliament is a strategicquestion which has been settled for all parties and all time. Nor did we ever support thepositions of M.B. Singh. In fact, we waged struggle with Singhs semi-Hoxhaite revisionismfrom our first encounter with him at the time of the formation of RIM in 1984 when the leadersof todays CPN(M) were still united with him in a single party. What our Party did believe atthat period and continues to believe today is that there was a great deal of rightism in thethinking and policy of the CPN(Unity Center)22 at that time and that unless the Party effectivelyruptured with that approach there would be no successful revolution. Our Party, together withothers in the RIM, struggled for exactly such a rupture. It is to the lasting credit of ChairmanMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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Prachanda (supported by a core of other leaders) that he was able to lead this process of leap andrupture with the previous wrong line. It was precisely this ideological leap that was central to theorganizational formation of the CPN(M) and the great historic decision to launch the PeoplesWar.The current version of history that is contained in the letter to the RCP,USA and echoed in otherrecent articles and documents of the CPN(M)23 is, alas, much different. Rewritten with 20-20hindsight, the entry into parliament and the exit from it were both well-considered and carefullyorchestrated maneuvers or tactics in the service of a clear strategy of preparing and launching aprotracted peoples war. Any serious study of the actual positions of the time shows that this wasfar from the case. There was a whole process of struggling to break with what had been thedominant understanding in the CPN (Mashal)the original parent organization of the CPN(M)which had a million and one reasons why revolution could never be successful in Nepal.Previously the CPN(M) noted and gave correct importance to this process of breaking with whatthe CPN(M) called the M.B. Singh school of thought. It is quite disturbing to see this processnow distorted or even denied by many who know better.The new history is full of on the one hand the struggle against revisionism, and on the otherhand the struggle against dogmatism, an eclectic treatment that effectively obfuscates theactual need that Comrade Prachanda faced in waging an implacable struggle against revisionismand the lessons of that earlier leap and rupture and replaces it with a harmonious process devoidof contradiction.It is certainly true that a great wealth of experience has been achieved in the course of thePeoples War in Nepal. We have strived to learn from this precious experience as best we canand we think that all revolutionary communists must do so. We have seen nothing in thisexperience, however, that strengthens the argument of the comrades for the possibility of atransitional state which is neither new-democratic in character nor a bourgeois republic. Infact, actual results of the past two years of experience in which the comrades of the CPN(M)have been trying to put this understanding into practice show quite the opposite.More Reversal of Historical VerdictsWe have seen that the CPN(M) leadership has decided to rewrite Party history in relation to RIMfrom the standpoint of retroactively justifying every previous position, especially now that someof those positions, such as participation in parliament and the peaceful pursuit of therevolution are being implemented today. It is worth pointing out that this rewriting of history,however, is not limited to the debate with our Party or other RIM parties and organizations. Itstands out in particularly shocking and bald form in the CPN(M)s new version of the history ofthe communist movement within Nepal itself.Consider the report Single Communist Party.

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The Communist Party of Nepal in its 59 years of journey has come through several splits andunhealthy inner struggle. These kinds of tendencies have not only weakened the communistmovement but ultimately resulted disadvantages to the people and the nation. Althoughcommunist and leftist parties have the overwhelming support and sympathy of the majority ofthe people of Nepal, the rightist and retrogressive forces have always won the race. Currently,leftist parties hold the majority in the interim legislature too but the leader in the government isnot from the communist parties.24 (emphasis added.)This whole article, and not just the above passage, basically says that the overall process ofrupture with revisionism (a word which is completely absent from this article) was unhealthyand led to disadvantages. What about the Peoples War? Does anyone believe that the PeoplesWar could have been launched without the rupture with revisionism? The fact of the matter isthat this article rewrites history from a parliamentary perspectivethe existence of severalcommunist and leftist parties divides the electoral vote. This is where the rejection of what iscalled one divides into two (discussed more later) will ultimately end upin an effort to cobbletogether a leftist or communist party composed of all sorts of opportunists and revisionistswho have turned their back on revolution but which can win in a parliamentary election andpreside over the government of the old state.Not surprisingly, changes in the Partys ideology and politics are reflected in its organizationalaffairs as well. Coupled with the change in political line and in light of the Partys call toconsolidate the new Nepal through all-out mobilization for the Constituent Assemblyelections, the Partys leadership now calls on changing the style of work, and specifically formembers to be broadly and openly out among the electorate. Remember that breaking with thewhole aboveground and parliamentary tradition of the communist (and pseudo communist)movement in Nepal was an important part of the necessary rupture to begin the Peoples War in1996. It is true that different phases of revolutionary work will require adjustments inorganizational matters, but some bedrock principles about the need to build and preserve thekind of party capable of waging revolutionary struggle are gone. Revolutionary work requiresone type of organizational structure. Parliamentary work requires another. Party leaders areexposed to the possibility of attack from what the CPN(M) calls monarcho-imperialist forces,not to mention the military apparatus of the old state. So we see another example of merging oftwo into one, as the Party says it is in the stage of strategic offensive and engaged in war towin the elections, yet the Party structure is laid bare for anyone to disrupt or destroy and the livesof precious Party leaders are put at great risk by revealing their identities. This is a matter ofgreat concern to us also.The International DimensionWe do not intend in this letter to explore in depth another often-advanced argument as to whythe revolution in Nepal cannot win victory, namely the unfavorable international and regionalsituation. We should remember that one of the key features of M.B. Singhs revisionist line washis contention that revolution was impossible in landlocked Nepal unless it was preceded byMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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revolution in India and/or China. The CPN(M) was correct to criticize this capitulationist theoryas part of the preparation for the Peoples War and this verdict must be upheld. The article fromFebruary 11, 2008 A World to Win News Service, is worth noting:No revolution exists in a vacuum. In Nepal as well, the advance of the revolution is closelylinked to the advance of the revolution in the neighboring countries and the world as a whole.Nepals close proximity and interconnection with India is a double-edged sword. True, thatincreases the countrys vulnerability to pressure, interference and outright attack. It is also truethat there are great advantages to the revolution as well. India has huge numbers of desperatelyoppressed masses, many with common cultural and linguistic links to Nepal. Already themillions of Nepalese who regularly work in India have been an important vector spreadingknowledge and support for the revolution among the people of that country. Given the extremeand intensifying contradictions in Indian society, a real revolutionary regime in Nepal will haveimmediate and deep reverberations throughout India, especially the north and northeast.Furthermore, although it has no common border with Bangladesh, Nepal is only a few dozenkilometres from that country, most of whose 150 million people live in conditions of greathardship. Previously the CPN(M) had put forward the very revolutionary call for a SovietFederation of South Asia which would create a new state structure in the region based on acommon battle for new democracy and the genuine equality of nations. If the revolutionaryregime is established in Nepal, there is a real possibility that the people of the region may cometo its rescue.The military strength of India and the imperialist states, it is true, is an imposing and formidableobstacle. But here, too, it is necessary to understand their weaknesses as well. India has had ahard time dealing militarily with insurgencies within its own borders. Its majorcounterinsurgency operation in Sri Lanka in the 1980s ended in a dismal failure. It would bevery difficult for India to intervene in Nepal, where hatred of Indian expansionism runs verystrong and where revolution can benefit from a very favourable mountainous geography. TheIndian reactionaries would have to think hard before taking on such a desperate gamble.The U.S. is, of course, an enormously dangerous and vicious enemy. But it is also true that theAmerican military is highly overstretched, short of manpower, and facing ever-increasingopposition to its imperialist aggression all over the world, including from its own population.Even the U.S. military knows how difficult it would be to fight Maoist revolutionaries deeplylinked to the people and enjoying their active support.It is definitely true that the revolution in Nepal cannot be separated from the revolutionaryprocess in the world as a whole and there are positive as well as negative factors that have to beconsidered. In the whole region there are extreme and intense conflicts within the ruling classesand between the masses and their oppressors. The establishment of a real revolutionary regime inNepal would be like a thunderbolt for the whole region. Yes, the governments of the neighboringstates would try to interfere and overthrow such a regime, but it is also true that the hopes of theMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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people of these countries would be aroused in an unprecedented way. The masses of people ofthe region and ultimately the whole world represent a real, if presently untapped, reserve ofstrength for the revolution in Nepal. A clear revolutionary programme and the living example ofthe masses actually taking power and ruling society can unlock this potential.25The international situation is certainly, in its main aspect, unfavorable. But it is also true that itwill remain unfavorable unless and until communist revolutionaries in first one or severalcountries succeed in opening a breech in the world imperialist system. If everyone waits for thematuring of a favorable situation internationally before acting, we will as Lenin put it, all besuspended in mid-air.Combine Two into One or Divide One Into Two?As we have seen, eclecticism, that is, the orientation of combining two into one, of puttingdifferent contradictions on an equal level and not determining the principal contradiction, andfailing to distinguish between the principal and secondary aspects of a contradiction, hasincreasingly come to characterize the political and ideological line and methodology of theCPN(M). Instead of criticizing and digging up the roots of this eclecticism, the veryphilosophical bases for many of the errors in the present course are being justified, upheld andeven proposed as a model for others as well.In order to understand a thing or a process, it is necessary to correctly identify the principalcontradiction which determines its nature and its motion from among the many contradictionsthat are involved in any process. The revolution in Nepal is no exception. Clearly the revolutionin Nepal is a complex phenomenon involving a series of contradictions, such as the contradictionbetween the forces grouped around the monarchy and those forces in the ruling class that are infavor of a republic, the conflict between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie, thecontradiction between the oppressed nationalities and the central state, the contradiction betweenwomen and men, and so forth. But it is crucial to emphasize that the fundamental contradiction isbetween the masses of people led by the proletariat and the three mountains of imperialism,feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. Nor can we accept that the principal contradiction in Nepalis between the monarchy and the forces of democracy. We do not know if the CPN(M) hasmade such a conscious theoretical formulation, but their policies and choice of tactics areconsistent with such an analysis.A particular feature of the eclecticism of the CPN(M) is to place two opposing policies on anequal level, or better said, to put them on an equal level in words while in actual life elevatingthe immediate, temporary and secondary above the decisive and principal.The confounding of strategy and tactics, reversing principal and secondary, is part of theeclecticism that increasingly marks the Partys writings. The following statement is typical of thekind of statements that riddle the articles and documents of the CPN(M):26

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The country is in the transitional period from autocratic rule to federal democratic republic. Thehistorical achievements are being institutionalized through the election of the constituentassembly. For this, there is a sharp struggle between the regressive-reactionary forces andrevolutionary-progressive forces. CPN-M is leading to the direction of building New Nepal. Therestructuring of old state power, the fusion of two armies, the awareness of the people and theadoption of proportional election system, the federal framework in place of unitary feudaliststate-structure and the participation of the nationalities, women, region, Madesh, Dalits,minorities etc. in the state power, are all achievements of the great peoples war. A decade longpeoples war has given birth to the power of people and its leadership without alternative. But towipe out the old and establish the new victoriously, the last encounter is inevitable.The first thing that jumps out in reading the above statement is that the goal is clearlymisrepresented as a federal democratic republic which is quite clearly not a new-democraticrepublic. In case there was any confusion, the excerpts clarify that the goal is the restructuringof the old state and the fusing of the two armies. And this is misrepresented as the goal ofthe Peoples War! Then this rather crass description of a bourgeois republic is declared thepower of the people. The conclusion about the last encounter is most definitely not referringto the final conflict of the stirring refrain of the Internationale but clearly to the struggle toestablish the republic. It is a perfect example of combining two into one.This same eclectics is reflected in the following passage of an interview with ChairmanPrachanda in the same issue.[Interviewer] How can you concretize the achievements of Peoples War?Prachanda: It has various dimensions. First, the present Nepali politics has moved following itssteps on its way and it has proved certain basic aspects of our politics. Second, it brought theawareness among the people living in different corners of the country. Similarly class, regional,racial, gender issues have been established in Nepali society which are the day properties for thepeople of Nepal and world. Third, Constituent Assembly, Federal Democratic Republic, theconcept of new Nepal, restructure of the state are the basic achievements of this war. For this,thousands of great people of Nepal sacrificed their lives, many more got wounded anddisappeared. To sum up the ideas its a historical revolt. To my mind, the final victory is toonear, we got victory and the last struggle is still going on and surely Nepali people will defeat theenemies. That would be the greatest achievement of Peoples War.It is true that elsewhere in the same issue other, contradictory, messages appear. For example: Now, we are advancing ahead in the peaceful process through the historical process of the tenyear long peoples war and nineteen days peoples movement. The goal of the great PeoplesWar is to move ahead in the direction of Socialism and Communism by establishing the NewPeoples Republic in Nepal. At present, we are advancing ahead energetically to the direction tobuild new Nepal through the election of the constituent assembly (CA) as the starting point ofachieving the goal.27March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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This statement, unlike most of the other passages and recent articles, reaffirms the communistorientation of the struggle. But it too concludes by arguing that the Constituent Assembly is thevehicle for advancing in that direction. Nowhere is it explained why the consolidation of afederal democratic republic is a stepping stone to new democracy.Eclecticism DefendedThis whole approach of combine two into one is not unconscious. In fact, it was one of thesubstantive arguments made in the CPN(M)s reply to the letter of the RCP. In their letter theytake to task our Party, and indeed the whole Maoist movement, for insisting on the principleenunciated by Mao that one divides into two. Their letter holds:Historical and dialectical materialism is the philosophy of revolution; it not only applies tosociety but also in human thinking. The unity and struggle of opposites is its fundamental law. Itmeans every entity divides into two, and each of the two aspects transforms into its opposite. Wethink the latter is the principal aspect for uscommunists.It is our opinion that the ICM, in general, failed in the past to grasp the totality of this law ofdialectics. Our class paid more attention to one divides into two in the past and is doing so atpresent, but knowingly or unknowingly it has skipped grasping and applying in practice thetransformation of one aspect into its opposite, the principal aspect.Comrades from one RIM organization wrote:In reality, one divides into two isnt just one aspect of dialectics; rather it is a concentratedway of summing up the law of the unity of opposites, the fundamental law of the universe, and assuch, it also includes or encompasses the transformation of the two aspects of a contradiction intotheir opposite. This is the way Mao and the revolutionaries in China understood it too. Forexample, the pamphlet published by the proletarian line in China Three Major Struggles onChinas Philosophical Front says that The concept of one divides into two that Chairman Maoput forward profoundly and concisely summarizes the law of the unity of opposites and grasps theheart of materialist dialectics.28According to the CPN(M), however, as we see in the above mentioned quote, one divides intotwo is something different than and contrary to the transformation of the two aspects into theiropposite (and they call for paying more attention to this transformation instead of one dividesinto two). Therefore, they do not see the process of the two aspects transforming into theiropposites as a process of one divides into two, but as something different. Independent of theintentions of the CPN(M), this can only lead to an erroneous, metaphysical and eclecticconception (two combine into one) of qualitative transformation.Indeed, the striving to combine two opposites and to mislabel this as dialectics is a feature thatMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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we can see in many aspects of the CPN(M)s line. As we saw above, this understanding is beingopenly and forcefully argued as a creative development of Marxism, a rectification of the onesidedness of the previous understanding forged by Mao and popularized world-wide during theCultural Revolution.29 The CPN(M) has become so permeated with the method of on the onehand this, on the other hand that that it has become second nature and is constantly given as theexplanation for their successes. In fact, this is a dangerous and wrong worldview which, far fromguaranteeing the continued success of the revolution, underpins a whole approach in theory andpractice which threatens to reverse the revolution.One point in particular in the previously mentioned article needs to be emphasized herethe needfor one to divide into two does not mean that a communist party or group is destined to splitand split again, as the CPN(M) argues. Repudiating revisionism and defeating an incorrect linecan, and often does, lead to strengthening the party not only ideologically and politically but alsoin terms of organizational solidity, numbers, and influence and, most importantly, ability to makerevolution.The Nepalese comrades are upholding the resolution of the two-line struggle between comradesBhattarai and Prachanda in the CPN(M) as a model. We consider the resolution of thatstruggle to be precisely an example of two into one, when opposite viewpoints are reconciledwhich can only, and did in this particular circumstance, lead to the predominance of the incorrectline.30The struggle against eclectics was an important feature of Mao and the revolutionaries in theCommunist Party of China, especially in the final, and tragically losing, battle with Deng Xiaoping. Deng criticized the revolutionary headquarters for being only concerned about classstruggle and not also paying attention to production. Of course, this was a slander against therevolutionaries and Dengs real purpose was to negate and oppose Maos teachings.The revolutionaries in the Communist Party of China (CPC) put it this way:Eclecticism is revisionism. In putting the three directives on a par, and placing politics andeconomy, politics and vocational work and technique all on an equal footing, Deng Xiao-pingwas using sophistry to negate the principal contradiction and the main aspect of a contradiction.This was an eclectic sleight of hand. Lenin pointed out in criticizing Bukharin: His theoreticalattitude is: on the one hand, and on the other. That is eclecticism. (Once again on the TradeUnions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin). We can use these verywords to give an apt description of Deng Xiao-ping. The phenomenon only shows the weaknature of the revisionists. They want to reverse the theoretical conclusions arrived at byMarxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and replace them with revisionist theories. Butrevisionism goes against the interests of the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary cadres andrevolutionary intellectuals, that is, the masses who comprise 95 per cent of the population; andsince practicing revisionism goes against the will of the people they dare not expose themselvestoo much, so they resort to eclectics because in falsifying Marxism in opportunist fashion, theMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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substitution of eclecticism for dialectics is the easiest way of deceiving the masses. 31Crux of the MatterIdeological and Political LineOne of the most often cited quotations used by our Movement is Maos celebrated formulation:If ones line is incorrect, ones downfall is inevitable, even with the control of the central, localand army leadership. If ones line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier at first, there willbe soldiers, and even if there is no political power, political power will be gained. This is borneout by the historical experience of our Party and by that of the international communistmovement since the time of Marx. The crux of the matter is line. This is an irrefutable truth.32And indeed, this quotation does concentrate brilliantly and accurately expresses the relationshipbetween a correct line and the consequences in practice of any given line. The political andideological line is a concentration of the class outlook, methodology and approach of a party(ideology) and the basic application of this outlook to the question of waging the class struggle,seizing power and advancing to communism (politics). Once the proletarian line is no longer incommand, bourgeois goals, bourgeois methods and bourgeois politics will inevitably fill thevoid.Our own Movement was born out of precisely such a struggle against an incorrect ideologicaland political line, specifically the revisionist line that triumphed in China after the death of MaoTsetung by means of the coup dtat directed at his consistent followers. While the struggle inNepal has not played the same kind of central and defining role in the world as the revolution inChina under Maos leadership, it is still useful to remember the circumstances of that greatstruggle on an international level.There were many parties and organizations who had professed agreement with Mao Tsetung andthe Cultural Revolution and then went along with the revisionist usurpers in China. In the case ofsome it was open attraction to the politics of class collaboration, but in other cases a kind ofrealpolitik prevailed by which communists in other countries refused to accept the responsibilityfor understanding and evaluating the line of the CPC. They argued instead that the line of thatParty was its internal affair and/or that the tremendous experience and prestige of the CPCmeant that others had no real basis or capacity to understand the political line questionsinvolved. Still others argued that the CPC had many previous two-line struggles and even if therewere elements that they found disquieting in Hua Kuo-feng and Deng Xiao-ping, China after all,was a socialist country, things might well be reversed in the future, etc.Some of this can be dismissed as slavish tailism and crass opportunismfor example, fear oflosing what support China may have given this or that movement. However, the problem wasmuch deeper than that: it went to the very way people looked at revolutionary experience, theunderstanding of internationalism and the responsibilities of communists in different countriesfor the problems of the movement as a whole. In short, criteria other than the correctness orincorrectness of the ideological and political line were used to assess the situation in China andMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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guide the communists. The results of this pragmatism and opportunism were tragic. Most ofthe erstwhile communist movement crashed on the rocks, were unable to maintain theirrevolutionary bearings and ended up, more often than not, in reconciling with the existingreactionary order and/or disappearing entirely. Furthermore, the developments in Chinacompletely bore out the scientific predictions of what the result of the change in line in the CPCmeantnamely the restoration of capitalism with the re-emergence of all of the horrors,oppression and exploitation that is at the heart of this system. Almost alone in the world, RIMwas able to keep its ideological bearings in the face of the reactionary ideological tsunami thataccompanied the loss in China precisely because RIM was able, at least in its main aspects, tounderstand the reasons for the reversal in China and uphold the principal tenets of MLM,including as they had developed and were advanced by Mao.Today we cannot indulge in anything less than the same kind of thorough, scientific examinationof reality and, on that basis, a firm orientation and determination to carry the struggle forward.Unfortunately, the ability of the Movement to carry out these responsibilities has beenundermined to no insignificant degree by some of the ways the Peru difficulties wereapproached. While this is not the place to review that whole history, the truth is that a wrongapproach interfered with and at times even overshadowed the correct revolutionary communistorientation upon which our Movement was founded. In particular, there arose the criterion ofpolitical truth, an approach which abandoned principles and took decisions not on the basis ofseeking truth from facts and applying our revolutionary science to understanding reality but onthe basis of what seemed useful. In particular this type of outlook was used to justify thehoax theory put forward by the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), whichinsisted, against available evidence, that Chairman Gonzalo had no connection to the RightOpportunist Line in the Party and that to even investigate this possibility was to commit thevilest treason. Today we are paying the price for those errors as well, as the Movement floundersin the face of a great challenge of stepping forward and coming to the assistance of therevolution in Nepal which has given so much to the international communist movement andwhich we hold so dear.Another quotation from Lenin often used in our Movement but too often misunderstood orignored in practice is worth repeating: There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism,and that isworking wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and therevolutionary struggle in ones own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy andmaterial aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line in every country without exception. We havethe responsibility of fighting for this, and only this, line and no other in Nepal, no less than theresponsibility to advance the revolutionary struggle in ones own country. Otherwiseproletarian internationalism is reduced to a mockery and international solidarity is nothingmore than a kind of commodity exchange, as can be readily seen in the dealings ofopportunists and revisionists on the international level. Trading the capital of the struggle inNepal (i.e., its influence and prestige in the world) in return for silence or acquiescence in awrong line is the worst kind of opportunism. And we have also seen what happens if thecapital loses its value, as was the case in Peru: people with this kind of approach are quick toMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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look for another trading partner. This is partially what explains how some who shamelesslytailed the screeching of PCP supporters against even the idea of negotiations now find it so easyto swallow the CPN(M)s Comprehensive Peace Agreement.Many comrades fail to understand what is going on in Nepal, or fail to draw the appropriateconclusions, because they have a great deal of confidence and respect for the leaders of theCPN(M) and do not understand why comrades such as these would adopt a line which,objectively, serves the efforts of the class enemy to reimpose reactionary rule on the society.Once again, the central question of political and ideological line is replaced with the subjectiverealm of intentions. We have no doubt that Chairman Prachanda and other leaders of theCPN(M) believe very much in the communist goal and are convinced that the present steps theyare taking are a necessary if convoluted means of reaching this goal. And intentions do count inthe sense that the comrades desire to reach the communist future provides a favorable basis forstruggle and a reason to believe that they can be won to understand why their present course is soharmful. But it is also true, as comrade Chang Chun-chiao said, that theory is the dynamic factorin ideology. It is the theories of the CPN(M) concerning the nature of the state, the summation ofthe proletarian revolutions of the 20th century, how to understand democracy, and, on thephilosophical level, the Partys criticism of the centrality of one divides into two, that are playingthe dynamic factor in transforming the ideology of the party. Thus it is necessary to sharplycriticize and repudiate these erroneous theories, and without such repudiation even a shift oftactic or policy, however welcome such shifts would be, is unlikely to get at the root of theproblem by itself.What Type of Ideological Synthesis Is Needed?Our previous exchange of letters with the comrades of the CPN(M) focused, among othersubjects, on the correct understanding of democracy and its role in the revolutionary state.It should be apparent from reading the exchange of letters between our Party and the CPN(M)that the ideological and political differences are not limited to the question of the policiesCPN(M) has adopted over the last two years nor even to the more general points about the natureof the new-democratic revolution. Comrade Bhattarais New State article that was the originalfocus of our Partys criticism closely links its theses concerning the transitional state to theauthors summation of the experience of the proletarian revolutions of the 20th century and theirreversals.One could sidestep this question with the observation that if the revolutionaries refuse toestablish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the first place there is no reason to worry aboutpreventing its reversal. But there is a very real link between the ideology and politics that theCPN(M) is developing as democracy of the 21st century and the tragic policies the CPN(M) iscarrying out today. Basically it comes down again to the ABCs of Marxism: the proletariat, ledby a vanguard political party, must, by force, defeat the existing apparatus of the state, establishits own rule (class dictatorship) and use this state power to transform society step by step untilMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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the very basis for classes no longer exists, either in the material conditions of life or in thethinking of people. This crucial question of the dictatorship of the proletariat has been at theheart of the major struggles between Marxism and revisionism throughout the whole history ofthe international communist movement, and it is no surprise to see them resurfacing today.It is most definitely the case that simply repeating the experience of the past, or simply recyclingpast polemics, cannot resolve the problem of how the proletarian revolution can reemerge fromthe cinders of defeat and actually advance amidst tumultuous class struggle toward thecommunist future. Tremendous things were accomplished by our predecessors, which reachedtheir greatest peak in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led by Mao Tsetung. But theworld moves on, humanitys understanding advances on different fronts, material conditions oflife are transformed and revolution faces new and unexpected challenges. If we insist so much onthe dictatorship of the proletariat, it is not because it is an ABC of Marxism but because allthat we understand about history and all that we can learn from contemporary society and theclass struggle argues that there is no other vehicle for reaching the goal of communist societyagoal which is possible and which corresponds more than ever to the needs of the masses of thepeople on this earth. The Chairman of our Party, Bob Avakian, has been working for severaldecades on the vexing problem of learning from the past experience, negative and positive, of theproletarian revolution, and has developed a new synthesis which he has referred to as a solidcore with a lot of elasticity. Comrade Avakian put it this way:This new synthesis involves a recasting and recombining of the positive aspects of theexperience so far of the communist movement and of socialist society, while learning from thenegative aspects of this experience, in the philosophical and ideological as well as the politicaldimensions, so as to have a more deeply and firmly rooted scientific orientation, method andapproach with regard not only to making revolution and seizing power but then, yes, to meetingthe material requirements of society and the needs of the masses of people, in an increasinglyexpanding way, in socialist societyovercoming the deep scars of the past and continuing therevolutionary transformation of society, while at the same time actively supporting the worldrevolutionary struggle and acting on the recognition that the world arena and the world struggleare most fundamental and important, in an overall sensetogether with opening up qualitativelymore space to give expression to the intellectual and cultural needs of the people, broadlyunderstood, and enabling a more diverse and rich process of exploration and experimentation inthe realms of science, art and culture, and intellectual life overall, with increasing scope for thecontention of different ideas and schools of thought and for individual initiative and creativityand protection of individual rights, including space for individuals to interact in civil societyindependently of the stateall within an overall cooperative and collective framework and at thesame time as state power is maintained and further developed as a revolutionary state powerserving the interests of the proletarian revolution, in the particular country and worldwide, withthis state being the leading and central element in the economy and in the overall direction ofsociety, while the state itself is being continually transformed into something radically differentfrom all previous states, as a crucial part of the advance toward the eventual abolition of the statewith the achievement of communism on a world scale.March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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In a sense, it could be said that the new synthesis is a synthesis of the previous experience ofsocialist society and of the international communist movement more broadly, on the one hand,and of the criticisms, of various kinds and from various standpoints, of that experience, on theother hand. That does not mean that this new synthesis represents a mere pasting together ofthat experience on the one hand, and the criticisms on the other hand. It is not an eclecticcombination of these things, but a sifting through, a recasting and recombining on the basis of ascientific, materialist and dialectical outlook and method, and of the need to continue advancingtoward communism, a need and objective which this outlook and method continues to point toand, the more thoroughly and deeply it is taken up and applied, the more firmly it points to thisneed and objective.33The above excerpt expresses in a concentrated way how we understand the process of makingrevolution and continuing to go forward toward communism. Our fear is that instead of siftingthrough, recasting and recombining the criticisms of the socialist experience and integrating thatinto a deeper and more thorough understanding of the need for a revolutionary state power of theproletariat to transform society, the comrades of the CPN(M) are actually uncritically adoptingwholesale ideological and political positions of the opponents of the proletarian revolution. Thisis particularly the case in how democracy is being portrayed and promoted in a way that rips itout of its historic and class content, treats it as an end rather than a means, and reduces thestruggle to one for formal political rightsbourgeois democracy. Twenty-first century-democracyas the comrades of the CPN(M) are portraying it, looks more like the 17th- and 18th-centurydemocracy proclaimed by Locke or Rousseau than the 21st-century communist revolution whichwe need to lead.We cannot in this article review all of the many important points of discussion that have emergedin the exchange between our Party and the CPN(M) or in the other contributions of RIM partiesand organizations. These questions of ideological and political line have immense implicationsfor the future of our cause and we are more than a little disturbed by the fact that many or evenmost of the RIM parties and organizations apparently do not consider the current debate a crucialmatter. The comrades of the CPN(M) told us to be patientwait and see. Well, we have notbeen patient and we have not just waited, but we most certainly have seen. The ideological andpolitical line that the CPN(M) adopted is being put into practice and the initial results are there tobe seen now. Even more tragic and disastrous results will surely follow unless the Partyleadership finds the orientation and resolve to chart a different, and in a fundamental way, anopposite path. Contrary to the CPN(M)s efforts to convince us that their theory is a result oftheir practice, we see the opposite. Theory, line, has preceded practice, has led practice, asindeed it must. In 1996 it was the adoption of Maoism by the CPN(M) and in particular thetheory of new-democratic revolution and peoples war that preceded and prepared the initiationof the great Peoples War in Nepal and which remained the dominant and determining linethrough ten years of heroic struggle. Unfortunately, today it is an erroneous theory of fighting fora transitional state floating somewhere between the new democracy of the proletariat and

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bourgeois democracy (in its form in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries) which ispreceding, shaping and guiding the practice of the Party.What is needed now is for the RIM to come squarely to grips with its urgent responsibilities andreally be the center of the worlds Maoist forces that the world so desperately needs and really bethe thorough-going proletarian internationalists we claim to be. Today this is taking a particularfocus in the struggle to save the revolution in Nepal. This very important battle is part of agreater process of rescuing the communist project in the only way that it can be rescued, byconfronting the ideological and political questions of revolution in the 21st century, daring toexamine and reexamine our precepts and understandings and forging the solution to the problemsof humanity. Our own steps along this process have convinced us, more than ever, of theviability and necessity of the communist revolution. The great lesson of ten years of PeoplesWar in Nepal is that it is possible, even in a generally unfavorable international situation and in asmall country, to lead the masses to break free from a system dominated by imperialism andreaction and in so doing hasten the downfall of that world system. Revolution in Nepal is, as anyreal revolution will be, exceedingly complex, rich, and difficult, and to advance from one step toanother is not easy. The important thing is to get back on the right road and use the mostadvanced and correct understanding to guide the revolution forward.The Revolutionary Communist Party, USAMarch 19, 2008Notes1 See the article by Chairman Prachanda, "A Brief Introduction to the Policies of the CommunistParty of Nepal (Maoist)", The Worker no 9, In the given context of the existence of twoideologies, two armies and two states in the country, the Party is agreeable to demobilization ofboth armies and carrying out of elections to the Constituent Assembly under the supervision ofthe United Nations organization and international human rights organizations.2 Smearing red ash (tikka) on the forehead, especially in the case of men, is a Hindu custom.3 For example, in the debate over the Right Opportunist Line in Peru, our Party refused tocategorically reject the possibility of negotiations and we struggled against those whocondemned the CPN(M)s previous ceasefires and negotiations. It is worth recalling later that wewere also attacked for these positions, including by some who are now among the most ardentsupporters of the CPN(M).4 Of course, any discussion of this type quickly falls into speculation because it is impossible toknow how the actual situation in Nepal would have developed if the CPN(M) had maintained afirm grasp on the crucial political and ideological questions.5 Karl Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Chapter VII, p. 122.6 How to sum up the Paris Commune has always been an important debate between communistrevolutionaries and different types of reformists and anarchists. We will only note here that the"New State" article is a continuation of the tradition of misusing the experience of the Communeagainst the actual lessons that Marx and Engels drew at the timethe need for the more vigorousMarch 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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and more thorough struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

7 Central Committee Resolution, October 2005. To shut eyes on the historical necessity ofdissolving and disarming the royal army that has been defending absolute monarchy by bootingdown peoples democratic movement and its achievement since 250 years, in general, and pastsix decades, in particular, becomes moving around feudalism and imperialism. In the history, norepublic has been established ever without dissolving and defeating the army subservient tomonarchy and Nepal cannot be an exception to it8 We would be interested in knowing more about the experience in the elections held under theauthority of the Magarat Autonomous Republic, including the CPN(M)s decision to let otherpolitical parties participatewhich some did on a local level. In one district the candidate of theparty was defeated, leading the Party as a whole to study the reasons for the dissatisfaction of themasses. But the important thing to stress here is the world of difference between this experienceunder the system of rule (class dictatorship) led by the Party and the multiparty electionsconducted under the dictatorship of the exploiting classes.9 The Red Star, no. 2, January 1-15, 2008, article by a reporter identified as a member of theCPN(M) Central Committee.10 See in particular William Hinton's magistral Fanshen, an account of the land reformmovement in one village in China.11 Lenin pointed out in his celebrated work The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Vol. 3first published in 1905) that small commodity production of a free peasantry creates a fertileground for the rapid development of capitalism.12 The State and Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 25, 422.13 Comrade Gaurav, The Red Star no. 2, January 1-15, 2008.14 In fact, the proponents of the peaceful transition to socialism have never denied that forcemight be necessary on the part of the legitimate elected majority against those who mightrefuse to accept the will of the people.15 The post-apartheid ANC regime in South Africa instituted what has been often touted as themost democratic constitution in the world. However, one of its pillars is its infamous propertyclause which recognized and preserved the right of the small minority of white exploiters tomaintain their property.16 We saw, in our study of the negotiations in relation to Peru, the fundamental differencebetween negotiating in order to fight and fighting in order to negotiate. In other words, botha revolutionary and a revisionist strategy made room for both tactics of fighting and talking (andmany other forms of political activity as well). But from the revolutionary perspective, thestrategy of the complete destruction of the old reactionary state leads and determines when, ifand how, the tactics of negotiations and compromises are necessary.17 See the Open Letter to the Communist Party of the Philippines from 1987 printed in AWorld to Win, no. 8, which analyzes this line at length.18 Reports from this high-powered imperialist-sponsored institution can be found atwww.crisisgroup.org19 The 12-point agreement (November 2005) is the political agreement between the CPN(M)and the Seven Party Alliance of the principal parties of the bourgeoisie which later developedinto the Comprehensive Political Agreement (November 2006).March 2008 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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20 There was also a serious political error in seeing the struggle as essentially a fight betweenfascism and bourgeois democracy that helped ideologically disarm the communists and lay thebasis for the very error we are discussing. See Bob Avakian, Conquer the World at revcom.us.21 Conquer the World discusses these questions in depth.22 The CPN(Unity Center) was the organization that was transformed into the CPN(M) in 1994.23 See, for example, the article by Comrade Basanta on the International Dimension ofPrachanda Path in The Worker, no. 10.24 The Red Star no. 5, March 1-15, 2008.25 A World to Win News Service, February 11, 2008.26 The Red Star no. 4, February 16-29, 2008.27 Comrade Kiran, The Red Star no. 4, February 16-29, 2008.28 **The article from RIM comrades cites Three Major Struggles on Chinas PhilosophicalFront. One divides into two, correctly understood as a concise way of expressing the law of theunity and struggle of opposites, embraces both aspects of the identity of opposites: first, that thetwo aspects of a contradiction mutually condition each other and coexist in the same process, andsecond, that in given conditions the two aspects are transformed into their opposite (the moreimportant aspect). In On Contradiction, Mao explains that the coexistence and mutualconditioning of the two opposites corresponds to a situation of quantitative change (relative rest),and the transformation of the aspects into their oppositeto qualitative change, the leap in which thesecondary aspect becomes principal and vice-versa (conspicuous change). Both phases areprocesses of the struggle of opposites, and therefore, they are processes in which one divides intotwo, but in different conditions and moments. Mao sums it up in this way: Things are constantlytransforming themselves from the first to the second state of motion; the struggle of opposites goeson in both states but the contradiction is resolved through the second state. That is why we say thatthe unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and relative, while the struggle of mutuallyexclusive opposites is absolute.29 Of course, if an understanding is wrong or one-sided, it is correct to criticize it, even if it hasbeen formulated by our great leaders. However, the principle of one divides into two as thefundamental law of dialectics is correct and should be mastered and applied and not repudiated.30 Central Committee Resolution, October, 2005: What those discussions and interactionsclarified was that comrade Laldhoj and other comrades were not for split, there remained nobasic difference even though there were differences in emphasis and angle in some questionsrelated with ideology of protracted nature, remained similar kind of thinking in tactic against theabsolute monarchy, party could be carried forward more unitedly in the sensitive moment ofhistory by criticizing and self-criticising, verbally and in written, the weaknesses emerged fromseveral doubts in the past.31 Peking Review, 197632 From the 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, adopted August 28,1973.33 Bob Avakian, Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity, 2007 at revcom.us

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Editors Note:This letter is as it originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) publicationsOctober 2005To the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)Dear Comrades,Our party, and especially its leadership, has paid close attention to the unfolding of the PeoplesWar in your country and the thinking of your party. We have particularly appreciated theorientation of Comrade Prachanda that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism advance into the 21st centuryand that the lessons of the first great wave of proletarian revolution beginning with the ParisCommune and continuing up until the defeat of the proletarian revolution in China must besummed up.As you know the Chairman of our Party, Bob Avakian, has made the study of this experience amajor focus of his attention. In many important aspects we have noticed a convergence betweenpositions put forward by your party and the directions that we have also set forth. However, forsome time now we have been disturbed by some of the political positions and their theoreticaljustifications that have been adopted by your party or, at least, by some leading comrades. Manyof what we consider incorrect, or confused and eclectic positions are to be found in issue number9 of The Worker, particularly, but not only, in the article by Comrade Baburam Bhattarai on"The Question of Building a New Type of State (hereafter referred to as New State).Our growing concerns over the questions of political line and approachespecially on thequestion of dictatorship of the proletariat and democracyare not just points of abstract theory,they very much have to do with the key line questions that in turn are relevant in terms of theimmediate tasks of the revolution in your country when the old state is on its death-bed and thequestion arises if the revolution will be fully victorious, what type of state will replace themonarchy, what will be the role of this new state in world politics and how your struggle willhelp advance the world proletarian revolution.The two-line struggle that has broken out in your party is focusing on precisely those questionswhere your past positions were, in our opinion, unclear, problematic or eclectic. One is dividinginto two or at least it appears so, and it provides a great opportunity for the party to cast asidethose aspects of its previous understanding and political line which go against the mainly correctorientation your party has been following throughout the long and complex course of thePeoples War.Our own central understanding of the question of democracy and dictatorship is best expressedby the following quotation from Comrade Avakian: In a world marked by profound classOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

divisions and social inequality, to talk about 'democracy'without talking about the class natureof that democracy and which class it servesis meaningless, and worse. So long as society isdivided into classes, there can be no 'democracy for all': one class or another will rule, and it willuphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is:which class will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve thecontinuation, or the eventual abolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations ofexploitation, oppression and inequality.Our concerns center on two basic levels. First of all, the theoretical understanding of democracyunder the socialist transition presented in New State loses sight of the most essential problemsof advancing socialist society toward communism and, in particular, undermines theunderstanding that it is not possible to transform society and advance toward the communistfuture without the dictatorship of the proletariat. Secondly, and partially flowing from theerroneous conception of democracy expressed in New State, arguments are made that tend tonegate the necessity of establishing a new-democratic state (Peoples Republic) as the immediategoal of the Peoples War in Nepal and would instead argue for instituting some kind ofbourgeois democratic republic as a necessary step.Democracy: Form and ContentIn the different documents of The Worker number 9 there is a great deal of emphasis on theimportance of democracy under the dictatorship of the proletariat in the transition towardcommunism. It is very important that your party is emphasizing the state as a transitional form tothe final goal of communism. It is also correct to stress that the concrete measures, policies andfeatures of the state system that are developed in the transition period must have as their aim theachievement of this final goal.The viewpoint that New State implies is that the simple extension of formal democracy is themain aspect in leading toward the withering away of the state. In support of this argument itquotes Lenin the more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it becomesunnecessary. But several points need to be made here. 1) The experience in the USSR andChina and the world revolution generally has shown that the need to develop and build up apowerful state machinery is not something that can be quickly dispensed with after the victory ofthe revolution in a particular country. In a world still dominated by imperialism it is quiteimpossible to imagine that the need for a powerful standing army, to take one key example thatis cited in New State, will quickly disappear. This has clearly turned out to be a moreprotracted process than envisioned originally by Marx and Engels and even by Lenin when hewrote State and Revolution on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. 2) When Lenin writes ofdemocracy in the passage cited in New State he is clearly not mainly talking about formaldemocracy, such as elections and the right to vote. Rather, he is emphasizing that the majority ofsociety will have learned to administer the state themselves. This, too, is not something that iseasily accomplished and will no doubt take generations to accomplish on a world scale,especially with the remaining strength of international imperialism. But it does provide one veryimportant measure for determining to what extent the proletarian state is truly democratic in theOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

most profound sense of the word and, specifically, in a way that is consistent with and servesrule by the proletariat and the advance, under that rule, toward the goal of communism and, withthe achievement of communism, and not before, toward the abolition, the withering away, ofthe state. The bourgeois concept of democracy is that election and formal rights is the essentialfeature of democracy. The classical revisionist conception is that as long as the state is acting inthe interests of the people it can be considered democratic with or without elections. But Maosituated the fundamental and essential problem elsewherein the problem of eliminating whatthe Chinese comrades referred to as the 4 Alls in reference to a crucial citation from Marxwhen he said the communist revolution must aim at the elimination of: all classes and classdistinctions generally, all the relations of production on which they rest, all the social relationscorresponding to them, and all the ideas that result from these social relations.As long as the three great differences exist, as long as relations of production are still notcompletely free of bourgeois right, as long the differences and inequalities left over from the oldsociety still exist, as long as production and exchange of commodities and the law of valuepersist, even if restricted, then the possibility of the emergence of new forms of exploitationexists and there will be representatives who emerge to champion these exploitative relations ofproduction and ultimately attempt to establish a different class rule. And the existence of thesevarious expressions of social inequality and of bourgeois right will, for a long time, exist at thesame time as and in connection withand will be interacting with, and reinforced in importantways bythe existence of, and the influence of, imperialist and reactionary states and theircontinual attempts to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat where it exists. The worldhistorical problems connected with all this, the reasons why this emphasizes the need for thedictatorship of the proletariat, until communism is reached, worldwide, and crucial questionsbound up with how to exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to, at one and the sametime, continue to transform society toward the goal of communism, in unity and dialecticalrelation with the world revolution, and to develop the proletarian dictatorship as a state that isradically different from all previous forms of the statethese and related questions are at theheart of, and provide the foundation and framework for, how as communists we have tounderstand and approach the specific question of democracy, its class character in differentsocieties, under different systems of class rule, and its relation to the goal of moving beyond thewhole realmand, as Marx put it, the narrow horizonof bourgeois right, both in the materialworld and in the thinking of people.Formal Democracy Under SocialismOne important common concern of both our parties is to sum up the whole experience of theproletarian revolution and the proletarian dictatorship to date. It is certainly the case that we willnot be able to make revolution in the 21st century if we fail to really examine, from many anglesand in depth, the positive and negative experience of our class in this respect.We cannot go into depth in this letter into this crucial question of the understanding of thetransition periodthe dictatorship of the proletariat. Comrade Avakian has written a great dealon this subject, and we would like to call your attention in particular to his article Democracy:October 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better Than That refuting K. Venu in number 17 of AWorld To Win, the article Dictatorship and Democracy, and the Socialist Transition toCommunism and the article on Discussion With Comrades On Epistemology On KnowingAnd Changing The World (see revcom.us) an excerpt of which was submitted for publication inan upcoming issue of your English language journal The Worker.In order to achieve a higher level of synthesis on the problem of the socialist transition, even aswe correctly refuse to exempt anything from critical re-examination, it remains necessary tofirmly uphold certain basic principles of our understanding, including the central Marxist thesison the nature of the state and the need to maintain a dictatorship of the proletariat. And while thedictatorship of the proletariat is upheld in words in the New State article, the article actuallypromotes a bourgeois-democratic orientation that would, if followed, lead to not establishing aproletarian dictatorship1 or to abandoning it if it were established.The articles in The Worker number 9 address the difficult question of what forms of laws,elections and so forth should take place under the dictatorship of the proletariat. We feel that tomake the most essential question one of formal democracy, and its expression in elections,competing political parties, and the like, is a serious mistake and will strengthen tendenciestoward the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or its outright overthrow bycounter-revolutionaries. This orientation actually directs attention away from the main source ofcapitalist restoration and away from the main vehicles for involving the masses in the furtherrevolutionizing of society.Finally, it should be noted that elections in socialist society are no guarantee at all against therise of revisionism in the state apparatus or its conversion into machinery of oppression againstthe people. In the same way in which the bourgeoisie in the West generally finds bourgeoisdemocracy suitable for exercising its dictatorship, indeed the most suitable form as Lenin putit, new exploiters, arising within socialist society, and in particular within the state and the partyleading the state could also keep the masses ignorant, inactive politically and oppressed whileallowing them to cast a ballot every few years.Does this mean we are arguing that there is no importance to formal democratic rights undersocialism, or that there does not have to be a Constitution, a set of laws, norms which take intoaccount the rights of the people? No, this is not our understanding. Comrade Avakian hasstressed in his recent writings on this subject the importance of such guarantees in keeping withthe Maoist understanding that even under the dictatorship of the proletariat the contradictionbetween the people and the state will continue to exist, albeit in a different way than under therule of the exploiting classes. He has also explored the possibility of allowing competingpolitical parties, using elections and so forth as part of the socialist state system. At the sametime, these possibilities have been put forward in a framework of what Comrade Avakian has1

In speaking of the dictatorship of the proletariat we are also including forms of the dictatorshipof the proletariat involving different class alliances, particularly the new-democratic, or peoplesdemocratic dictatorship, under the leadership of the proletariat that Mao describes.October 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

referred to as solid core with a lot of elasticity"the solid core being the dictatorship of theproletariat led by its vanguard party. Without this solid core elasticity turns into bourgeoisdemocratic pluralism, which will quickly lead to the re-establishment of capitalism and a realdictatorship over the vast majority of the people. Again, in this letter we can only briefly refer toand characterize these important points, and in addition to calling comrades attention to the talkon Dictatorship and Democracy, and The Socialist Transition to Communism by ChairmanAvakian, as well as the polemic he wrote against K. Venu, we have included, along with thisletter, two short excerpts from a recent talk by Chairman Avakian"Some Further Thinking On:The Socialist State as a New Kind of State" and "The Creative Development of MLM, Not ofRevisionism"which deal with questions concerning the nature of the state, the proletarian statein particular, and the transition to communism.We see this as a different approach than that argued for in New State and some otherdocuments. For example, there is the suggestion that it should be possible to adopt wholesale themethods of direct rule used in the Paris Commune or to dissolve the standing army. But therewill be no dictatorship of the proletariat in the conditions of the world today without a standingarmy, and in fact, to dissolve the revolutionary standing army, once socialism has beenestablished and consolidatedto a certain beginning level only, in relation to the long-term andstrategic task of advancing through the socialist transition to communism, on a world scaletodissolve the peoples army in those circumstances would be to invite, and in reality to bedefenseless against, attack at the hands of counter-revolutionaries within the socialist countryand imperialist and reactionary states, with the objective effect that the socialist society would becrushed and abolished and the masses subjected, once again, to the horrors of rule byimperialism and reactionary classes. And it will not be possible to utilize the Commune formssuch as the direct election of all officials as a general principle in running the state. History hasshown that without the leadership of a genuine proletarian party there will be no seizure ofpower or possibility of consolidating and maintaining that power after it has been seized.The quotation from Rosa Luxemburg's 1918 criticism of the October Revolution, reprintedfavourably in "New State", argues that the leadership of the party will inevitably lead to thedictatorship of the party. It is definitely true that the very existence of the proletarian state, avanguard proletarian party, a standing army, etc., all can be transformed into their oppositeastate of the bourgeoisie oppressing the masses of the people. The same can be said for therevolution itselfthere is no guarantee that it will continually advance toward communismrevolutions can be and unfortunately many have been aborted or turned into their opposites. Butthis is no argument not to make a revolution. Whether a state continues to advance toward theultimate goal of communism, and its own eventual withering away, depends on whether and howthat state is fighting to transform all of the objective material and ideological conditions thatmake the existence of the state still necessary. There is no easy way around this. Relying on theinstitutions and practice of formal democracy will not solve the problemit will not remove thecontradictions that make the dictatorship of the proletariat absolutely necessary, it will onlystrengthen the hand of those forces who are seeking to overthrow and abolish the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, and who can draw strength in these efforts from the remaining inequalities insocialist society and from the existence of reactionary and imperialist states, which for someOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

time are likely to be in a position of "encircling" socialist states as they are brought into beingthrough revolutionary struggle. Abolishing or undermining the monopoly of political power and,yes of armed power, by the proletariat, and its vanguard leadershipin whatever form this isdone, including by having elections in which the vanguard party and its role is put up fordecision in general electionsthis will, for all the reasons we have spoken to here, lead to theloss of power by the proletariat and the restoration of reactionary state power, with everythingthat means.New State argues that past proletarian states, instead of serving the masses and acting asinstruments of continuous revolution turned into masters of the people and instruments ofcounter-revolution, and rather than moving in the direction of withering away transformed intohuge totalitarian bureaucracies and instruments of repression. This description suffers from aclassless treatment of the state more reflective of the petty bourgeois belief that oppressionsprings from contradiction between society and the state, rather than the Marxist understandingthat the state exists to ensure the dominance of one or another class in society. And, to be frank,it echoes much of the slanders of the bourgeoisie itself against the dictatorship of the proletariatand falls, to a significant degree, into accepting the outlook and methods of the bourgeoisie andthe corresponding verdicts against revolutions led by the proletariat, through its communistvanguard, and aiming for socialism and ultimately communism. While we share with your Partythe understanding that it is crucial to engage deeply and sum up comprehensively the experienceof socialist society and the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is also crucial that we do this fromthe standpoint of, and with the scientific method of, MLM and not allow the influence of theoutlook of the bourgeoisie and its verdicts to distort and subvert such a scientific summation.The proletarian dictatorship is portrayed in New State as, at best, a necessary evil. In fact,state power in the hands of the proletariat and its class allies is a tremendous positiveachievement that can actually allow the masses of people to transform the world and themselvesin the process. There is no reason to be apologetic about this. In Nepal itself we have seen thetransformations in social conditions and culture that have already taken place in the liberatedareas, which give a glimpse of the even greater things that will be accomplished when nationwide power is in the hands of the masses under the leadership of the vanguard proletarian party.We can see from the very clear example of revolutionary China that the proletarian dictatorshipwas not a totalitarian bureaucracy. When the state, including the army, was under theleadership of Mao and the genuine revolutionaries, tremendous revolutionary transformationswere able to take place, including, very importantly, the incorporation of more and more of themasses into the administration of the state through different vehicles (three-in-one committeesand so on). China did not just gradually become more and more capitalist, more and moretotalitarian, as the state grew stronger and stronger. In order for capitalism to be transformed,state power had to be seized by the capitalist roaders, which they did through a coup dtat afterMaos death.Similarly, for the reasons we have touched on here, Luxemburgs remedy of general elections,unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, and the elimination of the leading role of the partyOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

will only ensure that instead of a few dozen party leaders leading the proletarian state, a fewdozen (or less) opportunists and capitalist roaders will monopolize the state and use thatmonopoly of state power to ensure that no real democracy exists for the masses of people, as wehave seen time and time again in history.Competition between different political parties cannot be made an absolute under thedictatorship of the proletariat it cannot be raised above, or even put on an equal level with, theneed for the state to continue to reflect, and to reinforce and further, the objectives of theproletarian revolution, in defending what has been won through revolutionary struggle,continuing to further revolutionize society, in the economic base and the political-ideologicalsuperstructure, supporting revolutionary struggles throughout the world, and advancing towardthe achievement of the 4 Alls and the goal of communism, on a world scale. Whether or not astate is, in its principal aspect, furthering those objectives (and not whether or not, or to whatdegree, there are elections with competing parties, etc.) is essential in determining whether or notthe state, in reality, represents the fundamental interests of the proletariat and masses of people.And while, once again, we can recognize a role, and importance, in socialist society for thingslike elections, even with some aspect of competition between different trends and even organizedforces and while we must recognize the importance of a Constitution, laws, and so on, whichgive expression to democracy, in a broad sense, for the masses of people, on the basis of rule bythe proletariat all those things too are dependent on, and find their role in relation to, thatfundamental question of whether the state is actually furthering the objectives we have referredto here, or whether it is in fact working against the further revolutionization of society and theachievement of the 4 Alls and communism, world-wide strengthening instead the bases for therestoration of capitalism, expanding the scope and influence of bourgeois right, in the productionrelations, the social relations, and the political and ideological superstructure of society, and inthe relation of the society to the world situation and the struggle between revolution and counterrevolution throughout the world.Certainly the genuine proletarian revolutionaries cannot and should not allow the dictatorship ofthe proletariat to be overthrown by a vote. And, it is possible to envision circumstances when,even in conditions of proletarian rule, the majority of the masses mightunder the pressure ofthe world imperialist system as well as the domestic reactionary classesvote against their ownclass interests. One thing can be sureif the reactionary classes return to power through a vote,they will stay in powerthere cannot be democratic alternating between proletarian andreactionary state power. Again, this does not rule out the advisability of some degree of electoralcompetition under socialism, but any such measures must take place within the proletariandictatorship they can never stand above the actual class struggle, both within the particularcountry and on an international level, and the dialectical interpenetration and interplay betweenthe two.Yes, there is a real and difficult problem of how to maintain a vibrant political and cultural life,how to train the masses of people to more and more take the affairs of state into their own hands,how to enable them to become fit to rule, to paraphrase Marx. There is a great deal to besummed up about difficulties our class has had in managing this correctly in the past and a greatOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

deal we will have to struggle over and learn. But one thing is certain, it is impossible to solvethese problems unless the authority of the proletariat is strong. Again, we can see the dialecticbetween Maos authority in China, which as we know was considerably strengthened during theGPCR and the unparalleled flourishing of mass democracy that also took place2. As for thosewho opposed Mao's "dictatorial" rolewe know where their type of democracy led the people.Peoples Republic or Transitional FormsIn New State the point is made that we should not rule out the possibilities of having to passthrough various mixed and transitional forms of democracy in the process of marching fromautocratic monarchy through bourgeois democracy to proletarian democracy. This sentence isarguing (or at the very least "not ruling out") that the revolution in the monarchy of Nepal must"pass through" bourgeois democracy as a distinct phase, require a distinct form of state rule,before "proletarian democracy" can be established. This same theme has appeared in otherdocuments of the party as well, in particular in an article aimed at "Our American Friends" inwhich it specifically states that the immediate goal of the revolution in Nepal is not a people'srepublic but rather a bourgeois democratic republic referring to the bourgeois republicestablished by George Washington after the U.S. War of Independence. This is most assuredlynot the kind of society and kind of state that the masses in Nepal, the United States or elsewhereneed at this stage of world history.It should be noted in passing that this article is overly generous toward the democracy of theU.S. bourgeoisiethe bourgeois republic established after independence from Britain did noteven abolish slavery until a bloody civil war followed eighty years later. And U.S. bourgeoisdemocracy has always meant real dictatorship over the masses of people including murderoussuppression aimed at the working class and the oppressed nationalities in the U.S.We see in "New State" where the theoretical confusion about democracy, especially the overemphasis on certain forms of bourgeois democracy (competing parties, elections and so forth),leads in the direction of abandoning the Maoist understanding of the new-democratic revolution.We all know that the stage of the revolution in Nepal is one of completing the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution, as was the case in China and as is generally the case in the countries ofthe Third World. But what this article misses is that the bourgeois democratic tasks are solvedunder the leadership of the proletariat, and that it must lead not to the establishment of abourgeois republic but rather to a new-democratic or Peoples Republic, which is, in essence, aform of the dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with all other revolutionary and progressivesections of society, including the national bourgeoisie.The article hinges its argument mainly on the specific conditions of Nepal, in particular that ithas a monarchy, which somehow requires a special sub-stage of struggle. No doubt the existence2

Our point is not that revolution cannot advance beyond the heights achieved during the GPCR. Both theweaknesses as well as the great accomplishments of the Cultural Revolution must be examined critically. But thebasic point is that democracy for the masses is dialectically related to advancing the proletarian dictatorship.

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of the monarchy is an important factor to take into account in analyzing Nepal, and developingand applying the strategy and corresponding tactics to advance the revolution in Nepal, but itwould be wrong to conclude from this that Nepal exists in a completely separate category thanother oppressed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and that the political questionsinvolving the stage of the revolution are fundamentally different.Every country will have its particularityin Iran the reactionary dictatorship takes the form of atheocracy,3 in many other Third World countries there are essentially one party dictatorships,with or without a parliament, in some countries there is military rule, and there are othercountries with monarchies. Again these particularities need to be analyzed and taken intoaccount as part of developing a genuine revolutionary strategy and the corresponding tactics inevery country. But we have seen again and again that arguments have been made that thesespecific forms require a specific stage of first establishing (or "passing through" to use the termsof "New State") a "pure" bourgeois democratic republic and only then can the revolutionadvance to a proletarian stage. And nowhere have such arguments contributed toor haveattempts to implement such a program led tothe eventual victory of the new-democraticrevolution and the advance to the socialist stage of the revolution.The role and character of the ruling classes and their political representatives, such as theparliamentary parties, are determined fundamentally not by their relation to the monarchy but bytheir relationship to imperialism and feudalism.The goal of the new-democratic revolution cannot be a bourgeois republic and the state system itestablishes cannot be a bourgeois democracy. Indeed this was one of Mao's most importanttheoretical breakthroughs, which led the way to the establishment of the People's Republic ofChina. He stressed that the bourgeoisie always hides behind the category of "citizen" to concealthe real class distinctions in society and Mao stresses that instead of bourgeois democracy it isnecessary to establish a state structure based on "democratic centralism" because "only agovernment based on democratic centralism will allow the whole of the revolutionary people toexpress themselves freely and combat the enemies of the revolution with a maximum of energy".(On New Democracy)"New State" cites an important passage from Lenin: "The transition from capitalism tocommunism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms,but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat." But then it goeson to say in the next paragraph that "In the transitional period of a backward society like Nepal,where the transition has to take place from semi-feudal autocracy through bourgeois democracyto communism, there would be naturally more diversities and complexities."The above situation is a basically wrong approach to understanding the transitional stage. Theleadership of the proletariat means that the bourgeois democratic tasksfreeing the country3

Although it should also be pointed out that Iran has a vigorous and functioning parliament, competing politicalparties, and so forth, within the framework of its theocracy.

October 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

from feudalism and foreign imperialismcan take place without creating a bourgeois democraticstate. It is the new-democratic system itself that is the actual application of Lenin's point of the"tremendous variety abundance and variety of political forms" of the dictatorship of theproletariat. New democracy is the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat particular to theoppressed countries and which completes the bourgeois democratic revolution and transforms it,without interruption, to the socialist stage.In our epoch the liberation of countries and nations cannot take place through bourgeoisdemocratic revolution of the old type. This is not some mere "academic" pointor, worse yet, adogmatic insistence on strategy divorced from actual conditionsbut is a fundamental principlebased in reality and confirmed by a wealth of experience, both positive experience and, all toooften, negative experience paid for in the blood of masses and the severe setback of the strugglefor the emancipation of the masses. This is mainly because the strength of internationalimperialism reinforces the subordination of the oppressed nations and, as part of this, tends topreserve and utilize backward aspects of the socio-economic base and superstructure, such asfeudalism and the monarchy in Nepal, even while penetration of imperialist capital underminessome aspects in pre-capitalist society and intensifies the class struggle. Exactly becauseimperialism is a world system and because, in the final analysis only another world system,communism, can finally supplant it, in this epoch no state can exist, at least not for anysignificant period of time, which is not led either by the proletariat or by the reactionary classesconnected to the imperialist system itself. Parliament or monarchy, junta or single partydictatorship, all the various forms of reactionary comprador bureaucrat capitalist regimes in theThird World share common class features and we must indeed "rule out" (to use the term of"New State") any "transitional form" which is not based on the leadership of the proletariat.Indeed history has shown that when communists participate in such a government the transitionis not toward socialism and communism but rather a transition of the party that takes part towarddisaster.If a bourgeois democratic republic is established in whose hand will be the state, and inparticular, the army? Would it be in the hands of the revolutionary masses of Nepal who havebeen struggling and sacrificing or would it be in the hands of the reactionary classes, in Nepaland internationally, who have been waging the counter-revolutionary war? It has, alas, oftenbeen the case that the oppressed classes and their leadership, including communists, have notsought to smash the resistance of their enemies, but it has never been the case that the exploitingclasses fail to use state power to try to suppress the revolutionary masses. What policies willsuch a state enforce and in what direction will society go? Will the state be allied with therevolutionary masses the world over or will the new state itself become part of the "internationalcommunity" led and shaped by the imperialists? It is not only basic Marxist theory but life itselfthat continually shows that there is no such thing as a state that does not have a class character,that is not an instrument in the hands of one class to suppress another.Tactics and StrategyWe have concentrated on what we consider to be the main questions of political and ideologicalOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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line that have surfaced in the discussion of democracy and dictatorship in your party. Clarity onstrategic questions concerning the nature, stage and tasks of the revolution are essential inguiding any party to correctly adopt the necessary policies and tactics to advance in the complexswirl of revolution. It is not within our capabilities to have opinions on specific tactics that yourParty might engage infor example, we are not in a position to know whether the currentunilateral ceasefire declared by your party is correct and useful nor do we feel qualified to formdefinitive opinions on such matters as "strategic offensive" or the precise form of the classalliances or all of the specific political maneuvering that you are undertaking. On the other hand,we do feel that tactics in a revolutionary process in a specific country can, and sometimes do,come to concentrate major questions of political line in which case it is incumbent on comradesin the international movement to understand these questions as fully as possible and, where theyfeel it is necessary, raise major concerns or disagreements. Even more importantly, there arebasic principles involved in the relationship between strategy and tactics that are common to allrevolutionary processes and involve the basic principles of MLM.Often we say firm in principle and flexible in tactics. This accurately describes the unity ofopposites between strategy and tactics. The principal aspect of this contradiction, the aspect thatdetermines its character, is strategy. This is why the same tactic can take on a completelydifferent meaning depending on what strategy it serves and flows from. We saw, in our study ofthe negotiations in relation to Peru, the fundamental difference between "negotiating in order tofight" and "fighting in order to negotiate". In other words, both a revolutionary and a revisioniststrategy make room for both tactics of fighting and talking (and many other forms of politicalactivity as well). But in the revolutionary perspective, the strategy of the complete destruction ofthe old reactionary state leads and determines when, if and how, the tactics of negotiations andcompromises are necessary. In the revisionist orientation, for example the strategy openly arguedfor by Villalobos of the CP of the Philippines in the 1980s, the objective was to arrive at acompromise at the strategic level, "partial power", where the proletariat would share power withthe reactionary classes (the famous "Nicaragua model"). And this "Nicaragua model" requiresarmed struggle as a tactic, as well as negotiations, in order to achieve its strategic goal of "partialpower".Thus we see that both models, both roads, use all kinds of tactics in pursuit of certain strategicgoals. But we cannot conclude from this that any strategy justifies any tactic. For example,reactionary military officials often study Mao Tsetung not only to understand the tactics ofcommunists but also, in some cases at least, in hopes of applying some of Mao's principles andtactics to their own counter-revolutionary war. For example, it is not hard to understand theadvantage of having a population that is favorable to your army in providing intelligence as tothe whereabouts of the opposing forces, and so forth. During the Vietnam war the U.S. armycalled this the policy of "winning the hearts and minds" of the people. Of course, they werecompletely incapable of "winning hearts and minds" and this very phrase came to be somethingthat was ridiculed and scorned by millions of people in the U.S. as well as all over the world. Butdoes this mean that the U.S. really did not want to, or care, about "winning hearts and minds",that this was only hypocrisy and crude propaganda to cover over their slaughter and torture? No,the U.S. military very much wanted and needed to win over masses in Vietnam, but theirOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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strategic goalspreserving reactionary rule in Vietnam and subjugating the nation to U.S.imperialismwere in antagonistic contradiction to the tactics of winning over the people.Instead the reactionary goal required and relied upon reactionary tactics of mass murder, tortureand rape.The purpose in going into this example is once again to illustrate the relationship betweenstrategy and tactics. While many, even most, tactics may be used by any class force, there aresome tactics that must never be used by the proletariatsuch as mass murder, torture, or rape.And there are tactics such as relying on the masses, suffering weal and woe with them, practicingdemocracy in the army that cannot be effectively employed by the reactionaries even if theywant to do so. It is not only, or mainly, a question of subjective intentions, but very much aquestion of class character and class objectives that ultimately determine specific tactics.If the goal is a "political solution" then it becomes possible and necessary to make the war servethis strategic goal and this can take the form of frequently stopping and starting the fighting, ormaking military tactics aimed at very specific and immediate political results. We can see thisamong nationalist forces and the kinds of military actions they often use (such as kidnappings,attacks on the civilians of the dominant nationality, etc.). A revolution led by a MLM vanguardguided by the goal of radically transforming society and advancing to socialism and ultimatelycommunism throughout the world must have the goal of completely smashing the old reactionarystate and thus the tactics employed must, primarily, be determined by the strategic laws ofwarfare.Do tactics and strategy influence each other? Yes they very much do. In particular there is thedanger of tactics transforming strategy. The comrades of the MKP in Turkey and NorthKurdistan summed up this problem as "tactics eating up strategy" and "policy eating up politics".There is the danger of the contradiction between tactics and strategy becoming antagonistic, inwhich case either the tactics must be changed and brought in line with the strategy or there is thedanger of the strategy itself becoming something different. In the case of a people's war there isthe danger that a war begun with the intention of accomplishing the new-democratic revolutionthroughout the entire country could be transformed into a war whose goal is to achieve "partialpower." Not only can this transformation take place, especially in a situation in which the partyis trying to unite with intermediate and vacillating classes, this negative transformation, from arevolutionary to a reformist orientation, is very likely to happen unless the conscious leadership,the proletarian revolutionaries, are constantly struggling to ensure that the tactics of the strugglecorrespond to the strategic revolutionary objectives."Fighting to negotiate" or "negotiating to fight": this is a fundamental question and dividing linethat our movement confronted sharply in the struggle over how to evaluate the "peace accords"tactic being put forward by the Right Opportunist Line in the Communist Party of Peru. Clearly,negotiating or not negotiating, cease-fire or no cease-fire, is not the central question.Revisionism has been able to use to armed struggleand the whole Nicaragua model isprecisely an illustration of this, especially as raised to the level of theory by Villalobos of the CPof the Philippines with the argument that the goal should be "partial power". Partial power meansOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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accepting a commitment to not thoroughly destroy the old state apparatus, to not fundamentallychange the economic and social structure of the country, and to not establish the dictatorship ofthe proletariat (in whatever form and alliances are historically evolved in a given country).Sometimes revisionists and opportunists openly proclaim the goal of "fighting to negotiate" butwhether the principle being applied is "fight to negotiate" or "negotiating in order to fight" is notonly a question of the subjective intention of the leadership. It is inseparable from the ideologicaland political line being practiced by the party.A Questionable ProposalIn issue number 9 of The Worker there is the following statement, "In the given context of theexistence of two ideologies, two armies and two states in the country, the Party is agreeable todemobilization of both the armies and carrying out of elections to the Constituent Assemblyunder the supervision of United Nations organization and international human rightsorganizations." In our view this "tactic" is one that is antagonistic to the goal of new-democraticrevolution. If it were to be fulfilled, that is, if the Royal Government and the "internationalcommunity" were to accept this demand and if the PLA were to be demobilised and ultimatelydissolved it would lead to very serious setbacks in the revolutionary struggle and quite possiblyits actual smashing at the hands of the reactionaries. (And, indeed, the reason the class enemiesmight accept such a proposal would be to inflict such a setback.) This is clearly an example ofwhere a tactic is incompatible with, i.e. antagonistic to, the very revolutionary strategy itself.Promising "full and fair elections," especially under conditions of control by the United Nationsor other imperialist auspices and with the proletariat shelving or "soft peddling" its demand for apeople's republic, could lead to an unfavorable alignment of class forces and strengthen thepossibility of a negative, even quite possibly a disastrous, outcome, which would amount to theParty, and the masses of people it has for 10 years led in people's war, losing through thisprocess of elections what it has won, at the cost of heroic struggle and great sacrifice, on thebattlefieldlosing this at a time when the possibility of advancing this struggle toward the goal,and great leap, of seizing power nationwide has come more clearly into view and closer withinreach, precisely because of the advance of the People's War.And what would be the case if the party refused to recognize the results of such imperialist"supervised" elections? The very classes and strata you were hoping to attract to your bannerwould feel betrayed. Your tactic would boomerang.Does the fact that this tactic is unlikely to be adoptedthat is, that for the time being the rulingclasses are not inclined to accept such a proposaljustify it? Do communists have the right tosay or promise anything if they are convinced they will not be required to fulfill these promises?No, there is the basic obligation of communists to speak and represent the truth. (For example,we cannot say that if a socialist state is established there will be no more poverty in Nepalbutwe can say that under socialism the social barriers preventing the people from using their effortsand energy to step by step solve the problems of the masses will be eliminated in a qualitativeway.) Furthermore, making promises that communists should not keep and should not want toOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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keep can leave the door open to possible setbacks with potentially disastrous consequences.There is the danger that what seems impossible today may become necessary for thereactionaries to grant tomorrow, in which case the earlier calls would greatly undermine thepartys ability to unite the masses against the kind of "solution" that is now being put forward inwords at least. The reactionaries in your country and their international masters are clearlyconvinced that any durable "settlement" passes through and must involve the destruction of yourvanguard party (and only then might the militarily, politically and ideologically weakenedelements of your party be permitted a "legitimate" place in the reactionary led "politicalprocess"). But they may be forced to conclude that the only way to avoid their own crushingdefeat is to accept some kind of solution along the lines proposed in the statement cited from TheWorker, issue number 9 above. And, it must be pointed out, if the enemies were to accept such a"political solution" it could well be coupled with, or be a prelude to, relying on military means toenforce a military solution, as we have seen far too often in history (Indonesia, Chile, Iraq in1965).And, in line with the point we emphasized above about the danger of setting the revolution upfor a crushing defeat we would like to stress that even if nothing ever comes of this "tactic" itstill has negative consequences in so far as it promotes an erroneous understanding of the natureof the state (both the existing reactionary state and the future dictatorship of the proletariat inwhatever form the latter is created in Nepal). The history of our movement from its beginning isfull of numerous distortions or attacks on the basic Marxist understanding of democracy anddictatorship and there are material and ideological reasons why this will be a protracted strugglethat will recur again and again including in new forms. It has also been shown that it is not soeasy to defeat opportunist and revisionist lines on this point. If, through our tactics, thecommunist revolutionaries themselves spread unclarity, eclectics, or even outright erroneousviews on this vital point it will be all the more difficult to win victory when the inevitablerevisionist and opportunist distortions arise.On the "International Community"There can be no doubt that the "international community" means, in essence, world imperialism,the reactionary states under its domination and influence, and those statesmen, public figures,journalists, and intellectuals attached to the world imperialist system. Does this mean that the"international community" is without contradiction, that it is a monolithic reactionary bloc? No,there are important and growing contradictions among the imperialists and there are significantsections of the intelligentsia and others who criticize and oppose different aspects of theimperialist systemcontradictions which make it correct and necessary for the proletarian partyto make use of the contradictions in the enemy ranks and to win over some of those "opinionmakers" normally attached to the ruling class. But here, as in all things, it is necessary to be clearon the principal aspectthe defining feature of the "international community"not only ingeneral but specifically in relation to the People's War in Nepal.An article appeared in the Indian press in the summer of 2005 saying that there was "anOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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unwritten consensus in the international community that the Maoists must not be allowed tocome to power." Is that an accurate summation of the attitude of the various reactionary stateswho in essence and as the defining aspect comprise the "international community"? We think itis very accurate. Among the imperialist powers, as the revolutionary Chinese comrades used toemphasize, there is both contention and collusion. But in relation to the People's War in Nepalcollusion is principal over contentionthe contradictions among them have not sharpened to thedegree that, nor has the overall international situation intensified to the point where, majorimperialist countries will "break ranks" in any fundamental way over policy in Nepal.It is true that different actors on the international scene play different roles, give differentspeeches, etc., including India, China, Britain and the United States. In the case of the U.S. andthe UK it has been proven over and over again that their imperialist interests are very muchintertwined with one another and that the whole imperialist strategy of the UK is based onaccepting and serving U.S. world hegemony. Tony Blair's shameless vassalage to George Bushin the Iraq war was only the latest evidence of this "special relationship". What is differentbetween the U.S. and the UK is that, even when they are completely united in their imperialistmarauding, they have different specific roles, particularly in the realm of public opinion. The UKcontinues to embellish imperialism with more honey-coated phrases about democracy andhuman rights, while the U.S., which also uses these words, is also able and required to openlyflaunt its biggest "argument"its huge economic and especially military strength. This isnothing neweven on the eve of the victory of the Chinese revolution Mao talked about thedivision of labour of these two predators. It is clear to see that in certain situations in the worldtoday the UK and the U.S. are playing a "good cop, bad cop" routine.What about countries such as France and Germany whose opposition to the Iraq war illustratedgrowing conflict with U.S. imperialism? Yes, these contradictions are real and growing. But theydo not mean that these countries will, in any fundamental way, oppose the dominant Nepalpolicy of the imperialists and reactionaries.And we all know the nature of India and what role it is playing in relation to the People's War,even turning in comrades to the Royal Nepalese torturers.To call on these forces and others like themand this is exactly what the UN meansto"supervise elections" in Nepal is a dangerous ploy that will have no positive benefit but hasplenty of potential for harm and could even lead to a devastating defeat.We can learn lessons from the invasion of Iraq. Even in that case, when the imperialist countriesreally were sharply divided and when the Saddam Hussein regime had long and extensiverelations with different imperialist countries, the UN helped set the stage for the US aggression.When, at the last minute, the UN Security Council refused to give its approval for the war, it didnothing to condemn it, let alone struggle against it. At this moment in history, and especially inrelation to a genuine people's revolutionary struggle, there is no possibility of the UN playingany role that fundamentally opposes the interests and objectives of U.S. imperialism.

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Even the current positions of France and Germany in relation to Iraq are revealing. Yes, theinvasion was wrong, perhaps even illegal or unjust, they say, but now that it has happened "wehave no choice" but to hope that the U.S. "succeeds" since the alternative scenario, that the U.S.is driven out, would leave that important area of the world unstable and "unpoliced".If there is any thought that the "international community" will be more tolerant of the Maoiststhan, say, of Saddam Hussein, this is a dangerous illusion that should be quickly abandoned.Who is a democrat, who is violating human rights, who is a tyrant or a terrorist and who is asaint in the eyes of "the international community" is not based on whether political forces orregimes are "democratic" or not, but whether a force is considered harmful to the interests of theworld imperialist system. Witness the recent promotion of Colonel Gadafy of Libya fromterrorist to responsible statesman, or the demotion of Robert Mugabe from reasonable exrevolutionary to bloody tyrant after six (yes, six!) white farmers were killed in the land reformprocess, etc. The fact that your Party has deep and close ties with the masses, enjoys theirsupport and relies on them, the fact that you have built a broad united front involving the greatmajority of societynone of this will mean that you are granted a status of legitimacy by the"international community". Mao and the Chinese communists were derided as "totalitarian"during the GPCR at the very time they were engaged in what remains the most massive politicalmobilization of masses in any society and the most widespread democracy ever seen on earthreal democracy in the sense of the right to criticize, struggle and transform society.Nepal and the Imperialist World OrderIn reality, appealing for the assistance of the "international community" amounts objectively to adeclaration that the revolution will not "disturb" the existing set-up in the world, that the kind ofstate that the revolutionaries are striving for, to replace the monarchy in Nepal can "settle into"the network of international relations as it now exists. While it is certainly true that newdemocratic revolution in Nepal cannot, by itself, abolish the existing world order, it is equallytrue that the existing world order will not tolerate a genuine people's revolutionary state. And, ofcourse, this has particular and direct relevance in the case of India.If the revolution is to do what it must, that is embark on transforming the existing socialconditions and building an economic system not based on "integration into" and in factsubordination to the imperialist world order, if it will fulfill its obligation of supporting therevolutionary struggle around the world, then there can be no doubt that the imperialists and thereactionary statesthe "international community"will bitterly oppose you and do everythingthey can to prevent you from coming to power in the first place, and to overthrow your rule, ifyou do succeed in coming to power, and this will very likely involve different types of militaryaggression as well as economic sabotage and blockade, espionage activities and the financingand training of counter-revolutionaries all of which is "business as usual" for the imperialiststates, and India as well, for that matter.Any election "supervised" by these imperialist marauders and their client states will never allowa genuine revolutionary state to emerge. Just consider what they consider a "fair" election. TheOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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elections in Iraq, under conditions of U.S. occupation, are considered very faireven by thosepowers such as France and Germany who did not support the invasion in the first place. Therecent re-election of Mubarak in Egypt is considered "exemplary" even though only 16 percentof the population thought it was worthwhile going to the polls. But when an election does notgive the desired results, such as in Zimbabwe or Venezuela it is considered "flawed" or"unacceptable" even though, in those cases, the heads of state who were elected were not evenconsistently or thoroughly anti-imperialist, to say nothing of real revolutionaries andcommunists. In Nepal only an election that will block the emergence of a people's republic willbe acceptable to the "international community".The above is only the immediate and more overt way in which the international communitysupervises the actual process of the election itself. There are other deeper and more importantways in which the "international community" controls ("supervises") the supposed sovereignwill of the people by using its economic, diplomatic and political and military strength to"mould" the opinion and votes of the people. For example, in the 1980s "free elections" wereforced on the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. This meant that the U.S. was free to funnel hugeamounts of money to the opposition candidates. And it also meant that the elections took placein circumstances where to vote in favour of the regime meant to vote in favour of extremeeconomic deprivation, continued counter-revolutionary incursions and violence and the threat ofeven more massive and destructive military intervention by imperialists and reactionaries and soforth, while a vote against the regime meant the end to the blockade and the promise of "peace"and improvement in living standards. Under these conditions it is not surprising that largenumbers of people, and not only among the most backward, voted "freely" against theSandinista regime.Our point is not that the party or the new state that it brings into being should passively acceptthiscertainly there is a very important role to be played by struggle in Nepal andinternationally against imperialist and reactionary intervention against the People's War"Hands Off People's Nepal" must become a cry of the revolutionary masses and growingnumbers of people more broadly the world over, especially in the U.S., India and other countriesmost directly intervening. But the party must never harbor illusions in this sphere or fail toexplain the real situation clearly to the party members and the masses. Whether or not you are"democrats" or "terrorists" in the eyes of the "international community" is overwhelmingly aquestion not of your nature but of their naturewhich is why Mao stressed, correctly, that to beattacked by the enemy, to be painted without a single virtue, is a sign that our work is good andthat if we were not attacked in this way, if the enemy were to praise our "democratic" side, itshould be considered cause for alarm. Articles and appeals misrepresenting the nature of theUnited Nations and the "international community" spread confusion as to the true nature of theseforces and undermine the capacity of the revolutionary forces and masses to stand firm in theface of them.Democracy and the Middle Strata

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It is very clear that one of the important tasks of the new-democratic revolution, especially inorder to take nationwide political power, is winning over the national bourgeoisie in the citiesand those classes and strata who are under its influence. It is these sections in the oppressedcountries who historically are most infatuated with the trappings of formal democracy while thebasic masses, especially in the countryside, whose life goes on pretty much the same with orwithout a parliament, are much less susceptible to these illusions.Because of the bourgeois democratic nature of the new-democratic revolution it is both possibleand necessary to win these strata over and guarantee that their interests will be protected for asubstantial period of time (and even after the revolution moves ahead to its socialist stage thebasis is laid to transform and lead the individuals of that class in remolding and finding a fullplace in the future society.)But it is also clear that there are many features of the national bourgeoisie which make itdifficult for it to unite with the proletariat: 1) it lives by capitalist exploitation 2) it hasconnections to the world imperialist system on which it depends for supplies, technology,sometimes even markets 3) it has connections to landed property as well. All this means that thenational bourgeoisie will continue to vacillate up to and beyond the completion of the newdemocratic revolution.This dual character of the national bourgeoisie is determined by its class character and notfundamentally by the policy of the communists. Of course, what the communists do will have asignificant influence on whether and to what degree the national bourgeoisie and those sectorsattached to it ideologically and practically will unite with the revolution, but their attitudetoward the revolution will mainly depend on the concrete strength of the contending camps andtheir own class nature and interests.It is also quite natural that now as the possibility of the defeat of the monarchy is looming large,the national bourgeoisie will be in turmoil. Some of them sense that it is now possible to actuallyachieve a bourgeois republic; even some reactionaries may believe that the monarchy has nowbecome a liability that must be liquidated. Many are no doubt happy to see the revolution on theverge of seizing power, others may not be so sure.The idea of a bourgeois democratic republic in a Nepal free of imperialism and feudalism is anillusion to dangle in front of the masses. But the national bourgeoisie and even some sections ofthe petite bourgeoisie and intellectuals attached to it actually believe in this illusion. No matterhow often history in Nepal and the world hammers at this possibility, the class position of thesestrata coupled with the ideological influences of imperialism means that this illusion will becontinually generated.Because the illusion of a pure (bourgeois) democracy in the oppressed countries really is just anillusion, reality keeps intruding on these strata, forcing them to define their position in terms ofthe actually existing state power and the contending class forces. This means that, howevermuch some of the national bourgeoisie and those sectors attached to or influenced by it mayOctober 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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oppose the reactionary ruling circles, there will continue to be a strong tendency for thesesectors to seek accommodation with reaction and imperialism. But when a real and concretealternative state power is posed, things can change dramatically. In Nepal we have seen that theparliamentary parties objectively aligned themselves with the reactionary system, through theirparticipation in the parliament and government and in other ways, most fundamentally throughtheir opposition to the People's War. Now that the revolution is showing a clear possibility oftaking nationwide power, there is a solid base for many of the former doubters and vacillatorsfrom the middle strata to be won to support revolution and for the doubt and vacillation to sweepover those sectors who had previously been firm in opposing the revolution. All this is importantand a good advantage for the revolution.But the key to this is the strength of the people's forces, the firmness of the proletariat'sdetermination to continue the revolution through to the end, and, on the other hand, theincreasing bankruptcy of the old order. All of this forces the whole society to choose with whichfuture, with which state power, it will ally. Without that compulsion to choose one destiny oranother, all of the illusions of the national bourgeoisie and the urban petite bourgeoisie willreturn and these illusions will be transformed into political programs and policies.Revolution is an act of force by which one section of society seeks to overthrow another. Eventhough the revolution is in the interests of the people, and even in the interests of the nationalbourgeoisie to a large degree, it still does, and indeed must, create compulsion on various forcesin society, even among the people themselves. For example, when the armed struggle begins inthe country or starts in a new area it inevitably is responded to by vicious counter-attack by thereactionary ruling class. Even those sections of the masses not initially mobilized in therevolution will soon be compelled to "choose their camp", and because of their class nature andinterests, as well as the political, ideological and educational work of communists, the vastmajority of the workers and peasants will side with the revolution. But the intermediate strata,such as the national bourgeoisie, will hesitate between the two camps and will continually seeksome illusory escape from the basic choice confronting society.Can there be any doubt how most of the middle classes would have voted if they had been givena "free choice" in 1996: should the CPN(M) launch a People's War or should it pursue its goalby more "reasonable" means? Today a great portion of these strata has been won to therevolution, has chosen to support the new state power in the countryside over the old state powerin the capital. But if these strata are given a different choicethe opportunity to vote theirillusionsthere is a strong possibility that hesitating support could turn into opposition.We fear that the policies your Party is adopting toward the national bourgeoisie, as reflected, forexample, in calls for elections to a constituent assembly, tends to overlook this basic reality.Instead of calling on the national bourgeoisie to join a state apparatus that will clearly be underthe leadership of the proletariat, there is too much of a tendency to promise that the proletariatwill respect a form of state, a bourgeois republic, which, objectively, corresponds to the interestsand outlook of the bourgeoisie.

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Not only would such a bourgeois republic fail to solve the fundamental problems of the masses,it would also miserably fail to resolve even the bourgeois democratic tasks of the first stage ofthe revolution, of thoroughly destroying feudalism and breaking the hold of imperialism on thecountry. Even if the leaders of such a bourgeois republic wanted to truly liberate the countryfrom imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, they cannot do so precisely because abourgeois state will reflect and enforce the relations of production in the old society and therelations between Nepal and the world imperialist system. Haven't we seen this time and againin the world? Nor should we delude ourselves into thinking that if communists were to lead, or aplay a role in leading, a bourgeois republic the results would be fundamentally different."Communist Allendes", or "communist Aristides" would be trapped by the very nature of therepublic they were presiding over, unable to fundamentally change the relations in society,unable to break from the smothering grip of imperialism and forced to either become themselvesrepresentatives of reactionary relations of production and/or be crushed.A bourgeois republic in Nepal would not be a "stepping stone" to a people's republic. All wehave to do is look around the world at the scores of reactionary republics to see what theessential features of such a state would be or would soon become and what it would mean forthe vast majority of people.In our opinion, the erroneous understanding about the relationship between the dictatorship ofthe proletariat and democracy most sharply expressed in "New State" goes hand in hand with theidea that the revolution must pass through a stage of establishing a bourgeois republic. In bothcases democracy is treated as unconnected to the problem of class rule, something that somehowstands above the cleavage of society into antagonistic classes. This is a reflection of a bourgeoisdemocratic outlook, not the communist dialectical materialist world view.There is much of importance to be learned in how Mao handled similar contradictions in thefinal months of the civil war with Chiang Kai Shek.4 Once the imperialists concluded that theold KMT regime was soon to be finished, they placed their hopes on precisely those sections ofthe national bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia who were hesitating between the two camps.Part of the intellectuals still want to wait and see. They think: the Kuomintang is no good andthe Communist Party is not necessarily good either, so we had better wait and see. Some supportthe Communist Party in words but in their hearts they are waiting to see. They are the verypeople who have illusions about the United States They are easily duped by the honeyedwords of the U.S. imperialists, as though these imperialists would deal with People's China on abasis of equality and mutual benefit without a stern, long struggle. They still have manyreactionary, that is to say, anti-popular, ideas in their heads, but they are not Kuomintangreactionaries. They are the middle-of-the-roaders of the right-wingers in People's China. Theyare the supporters of what Acheson calls democratic individualism. The deceptive manoeuvres4

See in particular On the Peoples Democratic Dictatorship and the following four articles in Volume IV ofMaos Selected Works addressing the White Paper prepared by Dean Acheson, a leading representative of U.S.imperialism, about the Chinese revolution.

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of the Achesons still have a flimsy social base in China." ("Cast Away Illusions, Prepare forStruggle", Selected Works Vol. IV, p. 427)Isn't this similar in some important ways to the situation in Nepal today? The important thing tonote is that in the above passage and many others like it from that period only months before thefinal victory of the Chinese revolution Mao is recognizing that these middle forces need to bewon over, that they cannot be treated like "Kuomintang reactionaries" but at the same time theyare very much capable of becoming tools in the hands of international imperialism, especiallybecause of their bourgeois democratic illusions. Mao sought to win these forces over, but he didnot let these kinds of forces set the terms. Rather, by advancing the revolution he continued tocompel these forces to choose whether or not to accept the terms of the people, of the newdemocratic revolution, and then did everything in his power to encourage these forces to choosein the correct way.Mao also was clear that, once the Kuomintang reactionaries were defeated, internationalimperialism would seek to rely on the supporters of "democratic individualism" as Achesoncalled them. We have seen the same pattern in our own times as well, where imperialism seeksout and props up forces who, on their own, may have played a positive social role under certainconditions. This is the case today, for example, in Iraq, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, as well as inthe example of Nicaragua cited earlierin all of these cases imperialism finds some nationalbourgeois and other strata (we are leaving aside the case of outright reactionaries), which it canbuild up and transform in a negative direction. Haven't we seen in country after country, forexample, how the whole NGO apparatus has been used precisely to transform and channel whatare often the genuine progressive sentiments of some sections of the middle strata into programsthat objectively accommodate to the domination of imperialism? The very class position ofthese forces, their dominant ideology, and their political program makes the supporters of"democratic individualism" susceptible to the sugar-coated bullets of the bourgeoisie. In fact,we must clearly recognize and educate the masses that "democracy" and "human rights" are theideological battering rams of world imperialism even when the imperialists themselves arepromoting measures against democracy at home and abroad. Yes, we must expose thecontradiction between the words of the imperialists and their evil deeds, but we cannot avoid thefact that the ideology of bourgeois democracy corresponds to their mode of productioninternationally, not the one that we are fighting to bring about. While we oppose theirundemocratic institutions, policies and actions we must not willingly or unwillingly extol thebourgeois democracy and bourgeois democratic political structures of the old type, that is thosewhich have been built up and incorporated by the world capitalist system. We must be clearourselves and help others to understand that bourgeois democratic ideology cannot lead therevolution in the direction it must go if it is really to liberate the masses and advance as part ofthe worldwide process toward communism. We will never succeed if we claim their banner asour own, that is, arguing that the communists, not the imperialists and the bourgeoisie, are the"real, consistent bourgeois democrats". Rather, any attempt to do so will lead to confusing ourown ranks as well as the people more broadly and make it difficult to correctly struggle andunite with those whose class orientation and ideology remain in the bourgeois-democraticframework.October 2005 RCP, USA to CPN(M)

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We are offering this letter as part of what we believe to be our proletarian internationalistresponsibility to support, in the best and most appropriate way we can, your party and thePeople's War you are waging. Our parties are linked together in the RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement and we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to struggle overthe vital questions of revolution in each of our countries and in the world as a whole. Not onlyare we linked in striving for the common goal of communism, the advance of the internationalistcommunist movement and the class struggle at this juncture makes it necessary and urgent thatour parties vigorously pursue our efforts to understand the world more completely in order tomeet the challenges before us. We are sure that you will consider the observations and criticismsraised in this letter in that spirit.Our sincere communist greetings,The Revolutionary Communist Party, USAOctober 2005See accompanying appendices which were sent with the above letter: Some Further Thinkingthe Socialist State as a New Kind of State and A Creative Development of MLM, Not ofRevisionism

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Editors Note:This letter is as it originally appeared with the exception of spelling and grammaticalcorrections and the deletion of a few citations internal to Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) publications.July 1, 2006To the Central CommitteeRevolutionary Communist Party, USADear Comrades,The letter your Party had written on 1 October 2005 to ours had reached to our hand quite late,and it was necessary on our part to reply to it quickly. But, we failed to do so given that we werevery busy with the speedily changing political situation in our country and the need to lead itclosely. However, firstly, we appreciate the initiative your Party has taken up to put forwardcriticisms and raise questions on our ideological and political position and the tactics we haveadopted in recent years and, secondly, we make an apology for being late in replying to yourletter. We firmly believe that the exchange of opinion will undoubtedly help identify the pointsof unity and disunity among us that, through comradely struggle, will help develop a higher levelof unity between us by narrowing down the gap. We are in no doubt that this process of linestruggle based on the ideological unity we already have will help both of our parties learn morefrom each other and elevate our ideological grasp to a higher level, which in fact can be one ofthe important cornerstones for developing MLM in the 21st century. Definitely it will have farreaching significance.Nevertheless, the letter has raised serious criticism on the ideological and political line andtactics we have adopted to accomplish New Democratic Revolution in our country and pave theway for socialism and communism. Not only this, your letter has accused us of sliding towardsrevisionism, though not mentioned directly. In this sense, the letter shows that we have seriousdifferences in our ideological and political grasp, which calls for thoroughgoing struggles. Thisreply of ours can only be the initiation of that struggle, not the end.Historical ContextYour Party, the RCP, USA, is very much aware that we were trying to develop our ideologicaland political line in an adverse international situation. We had shouldered this historicresponsibility when the International Communist Movement was facing a serious setback theworld over following counter-revolution in Russia and China, when our philosophy of MLM wasfacing all-round attack from the imperialists and revisionists, when the world imperialist systemtoo had undergone a change in which inter-imperialist rivalry had weakened and the unipolarimperialist plunder, mainly of US imperialism, was escalating all across the world in the form ofa globalized state. In addition to this, the Peruvian Peoples War, which was the most inspiringmovement for our Party in the 1980s, had suffered a serious bend in the road, and when otherongoing revolutionary armed struggles, quite a few in numbers, were gaining no momentum butwere cycling around the same circle year after year. On the other hand, the development of

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technology, mainly in the field of information, was making this world a small unit, and thegrowth of bureaucrat capitalism in our semi-feudal and semi-colonial country had brought abouta certain change in the class relations of society. All of these questions were pressing us to thinkmore creatively about how a revolutionary line in our Party could be developed. The semiHoxhaite dogmatic legacy of the MB Singh school of thought, which was deep-rooted in ourveins, was also creating obstructions to going ahead creatively. It was really a challenging tasksubjectively for us to come out from the aforesaid adversities. We came to realize that thetraditional way of thinking and applying MLM is not sufficient to face the new challengescreated by the new situation. However, we were confident that a firm grasp of MLM and aproletarian commitment to revolution could face this challenge.Taking into account all these particularities of the new situation, our Party creatively developedits ideological and political line. Of course, the way we tried to apply historical and dialecticalmaterialism in the particularity of Nepalese society from the very beginning of developing ourline and preparing for Peoples War, from the early 1990s, was to a great extent different fromhow other communist parties did before and were doing then in the world. The firm grasp ofMLM, the concrete analysis of concrete conditions, the correct application of mass line andthe creative application of historical and dialectical materialism, the philosophy of revolutionarypractice, in the particularity of Nepalese society were the basis with which we fought back alienideologies and reactionary and revisionist attacks against us, which in turn prepared the groundfor us to initiate Peoples War in 1996. What we have achieved during the past ten turbulentyears of class struggle is before the worlds people.In fact, the past ten years have not been years of smooth sailing for us. We have gone throughtwists and turns, ups and downs, and rights and lefts. Every revolution does so. When we appliedour line in revolutionary practice, it not only developed Peoples War in leaps but also startedgenerating new ideas so as to enrich the philosophical arsenal of MLM. It is known to your Partythat the experiences and the set of new ideas that we gathered from the revolutionary practice ofthe initial five years had already been synthesized as Prachanda Path in 2001. It is headingtowards a higher level of another synthesis.From the time when we established our proletarian internationalist relations with your Partythrough RIM, though we have basic unity between our two parties, we have not found your Partysatisfied with our political line and tactics at different historical turning points. Even now, yourParty, RCP, USA, is looking at our Party mainly with the same eyes with which it used to see 15years before. Frankly, RCP never correctly understood our Party, its political line and the tacticswe adopted at times. The traditional way of thinking and the dogmatic understanding of MLMthat the RCP is suffering from has made your Party unable to understand ours at every turningpoint of history. Just for example, when we had united with Lamas, in 1991, your Party reacheda conclusion that the unity was wrong and it was a deception to the proletarian revolution inNepal. When we partially used parliamentary elections, you thought that we were bogged downin parliamentarism. In your Partys opinion, MB Singh, who opposed our Party unity asrevisionist and partial use of parliamentary struggle as parliamentarism, was correct. When wesat for two negotiations with the enemy you thought that we were finished. But, the objectivereality never proved your judgment to be correct, because it was the result of your dogmaticanalysis and subjective synthesis. Now, we understand that you dont agree with our present

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tactics of ceasefire, interim constitution, interim government, constituent assembly election anddemocratic republic to be established by extensive restructuring of the state. It is because yourway of thinking is subjective and does not follow the mass line. The present letter is a proof ofthat. However, it is our firm belief that with the correct grasp of MLM and its creativeapplication in our particularity we will be able to establish a new democratic state under theleadership of the proletariat, possibly soon in our country, which will objectively prove yourdisagreement, serious criticism and indirect accusation of revisionism raised in the letter to beutterly subjective and wrong.Experience of History and Our EffortHistory is a witness that the proletarian class had succeeded in establishing its power in almostone-third of the globe, with the breath-taking sacrifice of millions in the twentieth century. Theimperialist world system of war and aggression for loot and plunder of the poor nations andpeople of the under-developed countries was under threat from the socialist system. Poverty,deprivation, corruption, unemployment, etc. the general phenomena of the capitalist mode ofproduction had been basically eliminated from those socialist countries.But questions have come up as to why those proletarian powers turned into their oppositeswithout any bloodshed, right after the demise or capture of the main leadership? Why didComrade Stalin fail to control the emergence of revisionists from within the Party he had led,despite that he did his best, including forceful suppression against them? Why did the CPC underMaos leadership, despite that it launched the Cultural Revolution, fail to stop revisionist Dengand his clique from grabbing power after his demise? Why did the Russian Red Army that wasable to defeat the fascist Hitler and his powerful army with the sacrifice of about 20 millionRussian patriots, fail to retain proletarian power after the death of Comrade Stalin? Why did theChinese PLA, which was able to defeat Japanese imperialist aggression and 5.5 million in theChinese reactionary army, turn out to be a silent spectator when the revisionist Deng cliquegrabbed power? Why did the Vietnamese peoples army, which was able to defeat the US army,the strongest army in the world, and equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, fail to noticethe transfer of proletarian power into its opposite? These and alike are the questions for whichwe are trying to find correct answers. Only cursing the revisionists does not solve the problem.It goes against dialectics to believe that we are immune to committing any mistakes whiletranslating MLM into practice. Therefore, we not only welcome but demand suggestions andcriticism from our comrades the world over. In this sense, we very much welcome your creativesuggestions and criticism. But, we have been very much frustrated by how you understand us,and your effort to teach us the basics of MLM as if we dont know them at all or we havederailed from it. We clearly observe inconsistency between what ideological and politicalassistance we need from our international comrades and what they, presently the RCP, areproviding to us through this letter. We need assistance in our effort to try to connect the missinglinks in the ICM by which our class had to lose its power in the twentieth century, but your letteris trying to draw us back to the struggle around the basic and classical questions of MLM. Wewant debate on the aforesaid questions to overcome the problems our movement faced in the 20s,when we have got no undisputed answer to date. Your letter does not focus on those ideologicaland political questions, but mainly teaches the ABC of Marxism. It is frustrating us.

July 2006 CPN(M) to RCP,USA

Historical and dialectical materialism is the philosophy of revolution; it not only applies tosociety but also in human thinking. The unity and struggle of opposites is its fundamental law. Itmeans every entity divides into two, and each of the two aspects transforms into its opposite. Wethink the latter is the principal aspect for us communists.It is our opinion that the ICM, in general, failed in the past to grasp the totality of this law ofdialectics. Our class paid more attention to one divides into two in the past and is doing so atpresent, but knowingly or unknowingly it has skipped grasping and applying in practice thetransformation of one aspect into its opposite, the principal aspect. Because of this mistakengrasp, in practice at least, our class applied the dialectics of negation in two-line struggle so as tocreate splits among our own ranks instead of helping to unite by creating the materialenvironment to make the wrongdoing comrades transform. In other words, our class practicedunity-struggle-split, not unity-struggle-transformation. The fatal consequences that thecommunists are confronting to date justifies [proves] this fact. Our ranks must correct it, and ourParty is trying to do so.Now the question comes up, how can we help the fellow travellers to correct their mistakenideas? Definitely, we dont have any magical rod. Firstly, and importantly, it is the correct graspand appropriate application of dialectical materialist principles in the practice of two-linestruggle within the proletarian Party that can correct the mistaken ideas of given comrades. Andsecondly, it is the masses of the people, the proletariat and oppressed class, that can help theirleaders transform by supervising, controlling and intervening, if necessary, upon them and theinstitutions they work in. We say, Revolution from within the revolution, and of course believethat it is the developed practical manifestation of and so the development of the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution, as propounded by Mao. In other words, it is the process of making massaction against the mistaken leaders a regular phenomenon under the dictatorship of theproletariat. We believe this is how the Party of the proletariat can help the wrongdoing comradesto transform in the service of the oppressed people and thereby check counter-revolution fromwithin its ranks. We will discuss later on how we are trying to develop the mechanism andmethodology to achieve this goal.State, Democracy and Dictatorship of the ProletariatIt is the ABC of Marxism that state power is an inevitable means to apply dictatorship upon oneclass by another in a class society. In a letter, dated 5 March 1852, to Weydemeyer, Marx says,What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up withparticular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class strugglenecessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself onlyconstitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.... In the sameway, in his famous work, State and Revolution, Lenin says, Only he is a Marxist who extendsthe recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.For those who claim to be communists to think that both of the hostile classes in a society enjoyequal rights under the existing state power is sheer nonsense and unscientific. The fact is that theclass in power enjoys democracy and applies dictatorship over the enemy class. Hence,

July 2006 CPN(M) to RCP,USA

democracy and dictatorship are two opposites of a single entity, state power. That is why therecan be no absolute democracy in a class society nor can absolute dictatorship exist there. It isentirely true for both of the states, the bourgeois or the proletarian. When classes cease to exist insociety, then the state power too ceases to exist, and consequently both dictatorship anddemocracy wither away. Where should we focus on is how our practice of democracy andproletarian dictatorship can lead to the abolition of state power and the withering away of bothdemocracy and dictatorship from society.Of course, our Partys serious concern is how the proletarian class, when it reaches power afterthe violent overthrow of its enemy, can strengthen the dictatorship over its antagonistic class sothat it can continue towards the abolition of the state by preventing counter-revolution. Webelieve that the more democracy for the oppressed classes is guaranteed, the stronger will be thevoluntary and principled unity among them, which as a consequence will strengthen thedictatorship over the bourgeois class. When democracy does not take root in the entire oppressedclasses, then bureaucratic tendencies emerge in the Party, state and the society as well thatconsequently weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat. The history of the ICM and our ownpractice of peoples power, though in an immature form, have demonstrated us this. This is whywe have been emphasizing developing democracy under the proletarian dictatorship.Now, we would like to see how our pioneering leaders looked at democracy under socialistsociety and the state. The Communist Manifesto, on page 57 writes, ... that the first step in therevolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to winthe battle of democracy.In his famous work, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination(Theses), Lenin writes, The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on asingle front, but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts,i.e. battles around all the problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in theexpropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the strugglefor democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadowit, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces completedemocracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless itwages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.Let us quote Mao from his Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of China. (Vol. 5, 15 November 1956). He says, We arenot even afraid of imperialism, so why should we be afraid of great democracy? Why should webe afraid of students taking to the streets? Yet among our Party members there are some who areafraid of great democracy, and this is not good. Those bureaucrats who are afraid of greatdemocracy must study Marxism hard and mend their ways.From the above quotations we find the Communist Manifesto, Comrade Lenin and ComradeMao urging for democracy. But we find the past practice of proletarian democracy wasinadequate, particularly in the lack of a specific mechanism and appropriate methodology toinstitutionalize it, which as a consequence weakened the dictatorship of the proletariat. We arenot arguing for something new, not in MLM, but what we are suggesting is to connect the

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missing link of the past to make both democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat moreeffective. So, we dont think your Party should be afraid of the democracy that we are talkingabout. Rather, we want your Party to concentrate more on how the genuine democracy of theproletariat can be established so that the voluntary unity of the whole oppressed classes canexercise effective and real dictatorship over their class enemy.Of course, we have put forward some proposals to develop a methodology and mechanismwithin the state so that it can effectively help implement the dialectical relation betweenproletarian dictatorship and democracy in society. We have seen Chinese practice, the latest,where we find eight different political parties of various sections of the masses, not of the enemyclass, playing a co-operative role in the peoples government. We think it was mechanical andformal, so it is inadequate. What we have proposed is to raise this multiparty co-operation to thelevel of multiparty competition in the proletarian state within an anti-feudal (or anti-bourgeois)and anti-imperialist constitutional framework. The RCPs criticism that the CPN (Maoist) issliding towards the abandonment of the proletarian dictatorship by adopting bourgeois formaldemocracy reflects your Partys unawareness to reach at the crux of the problem we are raising.So, instead of accusing us of having adopted bourgeois democracy, we request RCP to take itseriously and launch debate from the height we need.Now a question arises, what the Party of the proletariat will do if it is defeated in elections undermultiparty competition, which we think is your main concern. We believe this question is lessserious and less dangerous than, what will the proletarian class do if its Party in state powerdegenerates into revisionism? These are the questions related to how to develop a methodologyand mechanism to continue the revolution until communism amidst various internal and externalthreats of counter-revolution. This is why we have proposed that the constitution, which is putinto action after the proletarian class seizes power, should provide the right for the oppressedclasses, not the enemy, to rebel against the Party, if it turns revisionist, and to form a new one tocontinue the revolution under the given circumstances.On the other hand, the Partys necessity to go for the peoples mandate makes them moreresponsible towards the masses of people. If they are not to face competition among the massesto remain in the leadership of power, then there remains a material basis, in which the relationbetween the Party and the masses becomes formal and mechanical, consequently it provides anopportunity for bureaucracy to breed from within the Party itself. Past experience justifies this.Hence, we believe multiparty competition for the peoples government and, along with this, thepeoples right to supervise, control and intervene, including the recalling of their representativesfrom power, provides a kind of hook in the hands of the masses that can drag the wrongdoingcomrades into their court. This process makes the relation between the Party and the masseslivelier and vibrant, which creates a helpful objective environment for the wrongdoers totransform, either in a positive or negative direction.Criticizing our position, your letter writes, We feel that to make the most essential question oneof formal democracy, and its expression in elections, competing political parties, and the like, isa serious mistake and will strengthen tendencies toward the abandonment of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, or its outright overthrow by counter-revolutionaries. We dont think the questionis as simple as you have placed here. Everyone knows there was no multiparty competition, and

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the like, in Russia and China, which according to you is the main source of strengtheningtendencies towards the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Then why did Russiaand China fail to sustain the revolution and continue with the dictatorship of the proletariat untilcommunism? Multiparty competition is not the only way by which imperialism can play a role toreverse the revolution. We request comrades to focus the debate on what positive and negativeconsequences it can lead to if such a competition is put into practice under the proletariandictatorship, but not to reject it outright by accusing it as formal democracy of the bourgeoisie.Simply criticizing our proposals, based on logical arguments, does not solve the problem that ourclass is confronting now. We think the fate of the proletarian revolution in the 21st century relieson our generation, mainly our two parties at present. We request RCP to dare to break thetraditional way of dogmatic thinking and raise the level of struggle to meet the need of the day.We would like again to quote two sentences from your letter. It writes, China did not justgradually become more and more capitalist, more and more totalitarian, as the state grewstronger and stronger. In order for capitalism to be transformed state power had to be seized bythe capitalist roaders, which they did through a coup dtat after Maos death. Firstly, this kindof interpretation doesnt represent dialectical materialism, because it negates the inevitability ofquantitative development for a qualitative leap. There was a material basis mainly in thesuperstructure for the counter-revolution to take place, which was constantly developing fromwithin the socialist state itself. Had there been no such situation, why had Mao to struggleagainst various evils like, for example, the three excesses and five excesses and finally launchthe GPCR against the revisionist headquarters? Had there been no such material basis, counterrevolution could not have taken place in a single stroke on the wish of revisionists. Rather, thefact is Mao was late to foresee this situation.Secondly, this kind of argument leads to the conclusion that it is the revisionists alone who areresponsible for counter-revolution. This way of thinking does not go into the depth of theproblem but skips the question of why revolutionaries failed to prevent the emergence ofrevisionists from within a revolutionary party. Revolutionaries must not remain self-content onlyby cursing revisionists for the damaging consequences, but should emphasize more whatmistakes they made in the past and what measures they should take to correct them at present.The trend of cursing others for a mistake and enjoying oneself from such acts does not representeither a proletarian responsibility or culture.Democratic Republic A Transitional FormLet us initiate our discussion on this topic by quoting a sentence from your letter to us. It writes,The role and character of the ruling classes and their political representatives, such as theparliamentary parties, are determined fundamentally not by their relation to the monarchy but bytheir relationship to imperialism and feudalism. Strategically, it is very much correct. But, inour case, even though there is no fundamental difference between monarchy and theparliamentarian parties strategically on the question of their relation to feudalism andimperialism, in a tactical sense there are some conflicting aspects existing between them. It wasfor this reason that we have been able to take advantage of their conflict during the past ten yearsof Peoples War. This conflict is not yet resolved. Our political tactics of an interim government,constituent assembly and democratic republic of this conflict.

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The political resolution that our Central Committee Meeting adopted unanimously in 2005clarifies our position on this tactical slogan. It reads, Now the slogan of interim government,election of the constituent assembly and democratic republic that our Party, taking into accountthe international and domestic balance of power, has formulated is a tactical slogan put forwardfor the forward-looking political way out. Remaining clear on the principle that the tactics mustserve strategy, our Party has viewed the democratic republic neither as the bourgeoisparliamentarian republic nor directly as the new-democratic one. This republic, with an extensivereorganization of the state power as to resolve the problems related with class, nationality, regionand sex prevailing in the country, would play a role of transitional multiparty republic. Certainly,the reactionary class and their parties will try to transform this republic into a bourgeoisparliamentarian one, whereas our Party of the proletarian class will try to transform it into a newdemocratic republic. How long the period of transition will be is not a thing that can right now beascertained. It is clear that it will depend upon the then national and international situation andstate of power balance. As for now, this slogan has played and will play an important role tounite all the forces against the absolute monarchy dominant in the old state, for it has been acommon enemy for both revolutionary and parliamentarian forces. We dont think moreexplanation is required to clarify our position on this tactic.The question of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is very much linked with this tacticalslogan. Clarifying our position on the PLA, a unanimous resolution of the CC meeting held in2006, writes, In the present context, when domestic and foreign reactionary elements areconspiring against the Nepalese peoples aspiration of progress and peace, the whole Party fromtop to bottom must give maximum emphasis to the question of consolidating and expanding thePeoples Liberation Army and keeping them prepared to go any time into the war front. In thepresent sensitive stage, when imperialism and reaction will struggle to disarm the PeoplesLiberation Army, and our Party will struggle to dissolve the royal army in the front of talks, ifthe Party failed to consolidate and expand the Peoples Liberation Army and keep it prepared 24hours for war, the Nepalese people would suffer a big defeat. The Party can have a lot ofcompromises in the domain of politics and diplomacy, but will never give up the real strength,the Peoples Liberation Army and the arms they possess that the Nepalese people have gainedwith the blood of thousands of martyrs. Its name and structure can be changed in accordancewith the verdict of the people, but even its name will not be changed as to benefit the imperialistsand reaction and their wishes and demands. The Party will never tolerate any vacillation in thisbasic class and theoretical question.In general, tactical political slogans are materialized less in practice. This is because reactionarythink tanks understand that it has a direct link with the strategic goal of the revolutionaries, andthey know that the proletarian class takes advantage of it. But sometimes they are compelled toagree with it because the next alternative remaining for them becomes worse than that. In thissense, revolutionaries must not put forward tactical political slogans with the assumption thatthey are not being put into action. That is why our tactics has been so adopted that in both cases,whether it is being put into action or not, it can be linked with the strategic goal for a higher levelof offensive against the enemy. The main thing it needs to have is the political strength toweaken and isolate the enemy by rallying people around this slogan. When the politics of the

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proletarian class gets established among the masses, then the masses will have no hesitation torally around the Party raising that slogan. We believe this slogan has been doing this.The democratic republic can take its shape only after the restructuring of the state, which thedocument has clearly mentioned. It will be structured so as to resolve the basic problems of theoppressed classes, nationalities, sex and regions, the content of the new-democratic revolution. Inwhatever ways we manoeuvre in between with this terminology, it does not make any differencein the essence of the strategic goal. What we can say now to your Party is, just be patient to waitand see.Strategy and TacticsDialectical and historical materialism, the revolutionary ideology, is a science, and revolutionarypolitics is the art of developing tactics in favour of the proletarian class interest. Tactics cannotbe copied from a book, nor can anyone away from the knowledge of objective reality suggest it.It is creatively developed on the basis of the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. In thissense, one should be very flexible in tactics, because the objective situation goes on changing.But strategy represents a specific target or goal so as to resolve the basic contradictions in thegiven society. The revolutionaries must remain firm on strategy till the basic contradictions ofthe society are resolved. And tactics must serve strategy.Memorizing things from books and interpreting for hours and hours on their basis is one thing,and applying them in living practice is qualitatively another. Frankly speaking, it is very easy notto commit any mistakes in strategy. But it is extremely difficult to take up and apply appropriatetactics in the service of strategy. It is dangerous too. Where there is more danger, there is moreopportunity, this is dialectics. The test of revolutionaries, including your Party, is best taken bytactics, not strategy. Therefore, the fate of the revolution depends fully not on the strategy alone,but on what kinds of tactical moves one adopts at various junctures of the revolution to attain thestrategic goal.We can confidently say that we have been correctly applying the dialectics of strategic firmnessand tactical flexibility in our revolutionary practice, since before the initiation of the PeoplesWar. It is open to the worlds people, including your Party, that we had united with revisionists,we had been in parliament with 11 MPs, we already had two rounds of negotiations with theenemies, and the third round is going on. The Interim Government and constituent assemblyelection are on the immediate agenda. Comrades, if we were wrong in handling the dialectics oftactical flexibility and strategic firmness in our practice of waging class struggle, we would havebeen finished quite before. Any one of these tactical moves was enough to make us revisionist,the whole set was not necessary.Yes, there is always a serious danger of tactics eating up strategy or policy eating up politics, thesynthesis of MKP according to your letter. Tactical flexibility without strategic firmness createsthis danger, and its ultimate consequence is reformism and revisionism. It is manifested in theform of fighting to negotiate, not negotiating to fight. But, there is other danger too, whichyou did not mention in your letter. It is: strategy becoming tactics, in other words, having notactics, or politics eating up policies. To say this in another way, it is strategic firmness withouttactical flexibility, of which the end result is dogmato-sectarianism.

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Those who are drowned in the quagmire of tactical flexibility without strategic firmnessunderstand our Party as dogmatic, whereas, those who are suffering from the jaundice ofstrategic firmness without tactical flexibility see us moving towards reformism and revisionism.Confidently, what we can say is that both of these accusations are wrong, but we are correct,because we have been applying in our practice strategic firmness and tactical flexibilitydialectically. The qualitative leap of the Peoples War in the past ten and a half years justifiesthis fact.Our Party is very keenly trying to learn from the experiences of revolutionary struggles andtactical moves of the International Communist Movement, in general, and the latest experiencesof Peru and Nicaragua in particular. We believe that both ways of adopting tactics, in Peru andNicaragua, were wrong. We are confident that we can protect our movement from the mistakescommitted in these two countries.On the basis of our experience of unity and struggle with your Party in the past in general andyour letter at present in particular, we believe that your Party is deeply suffering from thedogmato-sectarian trend. Therefore, we are not surprised to receive from your Party a warningbell through your letter in which it has doubted that our revolution is sliding towards revisionism.We know it is not your wish to indirectly accuse us of revisionism, but it is your way of thinkingthat has led you to this conclusion. Nevertheless, we dont claim that we are immune tocommitting any mistakes in our path. In this sense, your letter has contributed significantly toalerting us to the possible dangers ahead on our journey.New Democratic Republic of Nepal and the ArmyWhat our present position is on the PLA in the context, when your letter has suspected us ofdissolving it, has been clarified in the part of the document excerpted before. We dont think itnecessary to elaborate on this more. But, given our geopolitical situation, we are developingsome concepts about the strength of the army in the New Democratic Republic of Nepal. It is ageographical fact that our country, inhabited only by 25 million people, is sandwiched betweentwo giant nations, India and China, each of which has more than one billion inhabitants. Chinesemilitary strength is being developed so as to counter US imperialism. The Indian army is knownto be the fourth-strongest army in the world. From the resources we have in our country and thestrength of our PLA, even if we recruit all of the youths within it, we cannot think of defeatingeither of the armies neighbouring us, let alone the US imperialist army, to defend ourgeographical integrity from foreign military aggression.In this objective situation, we have to maintain our army not to fight foreign military aggression,but so as to provide military training to the general masses in the form of the militia. Only thearmed sea of the masses, equipped with revolutionary ideology and politics, can defend ourgeographical integrity. Just for example, we have a brilliant history of heroic struggles in thepast. The Nepalese masses equipped with domestic weapons and aged from 11 to 65 years had,under the leadership of patriotic army generals like Bhakti Thapa and Balbhadra Kunwar,defeated British aggressors attacking from the South, in Nalapani. Based upon the aforesaidhistorical facts too, we think that some thousands of the PLA will be sufficient to train the

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general masses so as to defend her geographical integrity under the New Democratic andSocialist Republic of Nepal.Our Party has developed this concept on the basis of the bitter experiences of the past revolutionstoo. This means it is related to how the relation between the army and the general masses can bemaintained as cordial as it was before the capture of power. But, after the seizure of power, if thePLA are set in big permanent army barracks, objectively this would cut off the previous vibrantrelation of water and fish and soil and seed between the general masses and their army, andconsequently a bureaucratic set-up would start getting its shape from within this. This is why weare for developing a new methodology and mechanism by which bureaucracy could be frustratedfrom within the army, so that a strong peoples relationship with them is maintained. We thinkthis way of maintaining the Peoples Army can democratize it more, can involve them more withmass activities and strong ideological and political unity, which so develops among their ranksand the masses, and enables them to fight unitedly against both threats, internal and external.This can also be a new concept for maintaining the army in the socialist countries, in the 21stcentury, to fight international imperialism. We want to debate from this height.Miscellaneous pointsLet us excerpt some of the important parts of a sentence or sentences from the latter part of yourletter under different headings like, A questionable proposal, On the internationalcommunity, Nepal and the Imperialist World Order etc. These are as under:And, it must be pointed out, if the enemies were to accept such a political solution it couldwell be coupled with, or be a prelude to, relying on military means to enforce a military solution,as we have seen far too often in history (Indonesia, Chile, Iraq in 1965).it is equally true that the existing world order will not tolerate a genuine peoplesrevolutionary state.an unwritten consensus in the international community that the Maoists must not be allowedto come to power. We think it is very accurate. the international communitywill bitterly oppose you and do everything they can toprevent you from coming to power in the first place, and to overthrow your rule, if you dosucceed in coming to power, and this will very likely involve different types of militaryaggression as well as economic sabotage and blockade, espionage activities and the financingand training of counter-revolutionaries all of which is business as usual for the imperialiststates and India as well, for that matter.First of all, we would like to say that your concerns expressed in these excerpts is very muchcorrect, so we share them. Imperialism will not tolerate any revolutionary to rule in any part ofthis earth as long as they can. It was not true that the CPSU and CPC first made imperialismhappy with their politics and tactics, and then collected support to establish the dictatorship ofthe proletariat in their countries. Also it was not true that they successfully established thedictatorship of the proletariat because they were superior to imperialism militarily. The fact was

July 2006 CPN(M) to RCP,USA

11

that the Party of the proletariat was superior in mobilising people around it, handlingcontradictions among the enemies and using them in ones favour dialectically, because theiroutlook was scientific and they were far-sighted. The same is true for now also.From the whole of your letter, it implies that imperialism will not allow any revolutionaries tohave a political settlement in a peaceful way and will conspire with business as usual to destroyrevolution. And it also implies that what our Party is doing now tactically is wrong and nonsense.Therefore your letter has suggested us to go straightforward in a military way, with business asusual. We appreciate your concern; but we understand imperialism will not tolerate us in powerat all, as long as they can, even if we go with business as usual too. That is why, whetherimperialism will tolerate us or not is not the question at all behind our tactics; with which tacticswe can defeat imperialism in the present context is the only question. We are not self-assured onthe question that imperialism will allow resolving the civil war peacefully in the way our Partywants, but we are confident that we can defeat imperialism and their puppets in the military frontby going through this tactic only. This is the question of applying the mass line correctly.Yes, there are some confusing positions in our interpretations, in several contexts. We thinksometimes they are necessary. If we can confuse our enemies and the international communitywith our tactical dealings, it can divide them to a certain extent, which will benefit ourrevolution. Problems will arise only if the Party of the proletariat itself is confused. So long asthe ideological and political line is clear and the Party is committed to accomplishing its strategicmission, it can lead the masses in all circumstances. Revolutionaries can lead the masses aheadfrom the height of consciousness they acquire from the class struggle in society, not from theheight of consciousness the Party of the proletariat has. It is a question of not dictating to them todo what we want, but of being together with the masses to deal with the situation and applyingthe mass line to develop their consciousness.Your letter has very apprehensively raised one question. If the enemy accepts your demand, justfor example, a constituent assembly, you are obligated to agree with it; otherwise you will losethe confidence of the masses. We appreciate your anxiety. But we understand that a constituentassembly in itself is not a solution, but its political content can be. For example, if the constituentassembly can ensure the dissolution of the royal army, the reorganization of the national armyunder our leadership, the implementation of revolutionary land reform based upon the policy ofland to the tiller, the right of nations to self-determination, an end to social discrimination,development and prosperity, etc., why should one oppose it? By this, we mean that theconstituent assembly is decided by its political content, not by its form. It is not an inert thing butfull of contradictions, only what is required is our capability to use those contradictions in favourof our strategic goal.The masses never compromise with their necessities but prefer peaceful execution. It is the taskof the revolutionary parties to prove through practice that their necessities are not met bypeaceful means. And only by doing this can the Party of the proletariat lead them to violentstruggles. We understand that the enemy will not allow us to attain our strategic goal in apeaceful way, but we can lead the masses in violent struggle to overthrow them with suchpolitical tactics.

July 2006 CPN(M) to RCP,USA

12

ConclusionThis is our short response to your letter dated 1 October 2005. We hope we succeeded to placeour position clearly, mainly on the questions you have raised in the letter.We understand that our two Parties have a convergence of views on the need to synthesize thepositive and negative experiences of the past successful revolutions. Also we have convergencesof views on the need to develop MLM to confront the challenges before our class in the 21stcentury. We believe that MLM can be developed in the course of applying historical anddialectical materialism in the practice of class struggle in society, two-line struggle among theentire revolutionary ranks all across the world, and the correct synthesis of past experience. Ourtwo parties have a good opportunity to wage struggle, both being together in RIM. As aninternationalist class, both of us have an important responsibility to fight unitedly for our class inthe USA, in Nepal and the world as well. We take this response of ours as a first step towardsthat direction.With Revolutionary Greetings!From the Central Committee,Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)July 2006

July 2006 CPN(M) to RCP,USA

13

First Appendix to the October 2005 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USAto the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)This is an excerpt from a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA.

The Creative Development of MLM, Not of Revisionism

Now this question of creative development is a very tricky question. Khrushchev claimed that hewas creatively developing Marxism-Leninism when he brought forward revisionist theses, orfeces. [laughter] (There is the Shakespeare analogy, againhe couldn't resist a pun, and Icouldn't resist a play on words here). Anyway, Khrushchev's "three peacefuls"peacefulcompetition, peaceful co-existence, peaceful transition to socialismand his "two wholes"theparty of the whole people and the state of the whole peoplethese were revisionist theses. Thesewere revisionist theses which he claimed represented a creative development of MarxismLeninism in the context of new conditions in the world. Whether they are creative developmentsor whether they are, in fact, feces, needs to be analyzed and determined concretely andscientifically. And there isas is pointed out in the Declaration of the RIM, and we've spoken tothisa dialectical relation between upholding fundamental principles while not only creativelydeveloping them, but even interrogating them repeatedly to see if they are correct, and to seewhat we are learning about even those fundamental aspects of things.So this is one of those things that also requires a lot of work and science. But if we are going tomeet the challenges of making revolution in the world that's been set in motion in particular bythis resolution of previous contradictions (with the "End of the Cold War"), in this period ofmajor transition with the potential for great upheaval, and more broadly the changes that arebeing brought about in the worldthe playing out of the more underlying contradictions thathave been spoken to throughout in this talkthen we are going to have to actually creativelyapply and further develop our grasp and our application of the fundamental principles of ourscience.And, in all this, it is of decisive importance to at one and the same time remain firmly groundedin the fundamental understanding and principle that what is required is the revolutionary seizureof power, by millions (and, in a country like this, ultimately tens of millions and in somecountries hundreds of millions) of people, and the thorough defeat and shattering of the existingstate power and consolidation of a new state power, through the revolutionary struggle ofmasses, as the first great leap. If we let go of thateither in theory or if in practice we applylines that lose our grip on thatwe will not only be set back but our struggle will be drowned inblood, repeatedly.You have to understand that whatever the stage of the class struggle, whatever its level ofdevelopment at a given time, fundamentally what is involved is the struggle over what thecharacter of the state will be, so long as we are in class society. In a country like the U.S. we arenot on the road of protracted people's war, so we can't now form even an embryonic state thatrepresents a rival regime to the existing state as, for example, is happening now in Nepal. ThereThe Creative Development of MLM, Not of RevisionismFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

this fundamental question, of one state vs. another, is very clearly illuminated, but in oursituation it's not so clear. Yet, fundamentally, what's going on is the struggle over what thecharacter of the state will be, and who's going to be controlling the statewhat the nature of thestate is going to be and what it's going to be aiming toward. That is what's at issue, and one or theother force, representing opposing state powers, is going to shatter and destroy the other. That'swhat's strategically involved: One state power or another is going to shatter and destroy theother, in the final analysis, even though that's only the beginning of another stage of the struggleand not the end of everything.And if you lose sight of that strategic factor even if you continue to uphold it in conception butgo in a direction and apply policies that lead you away from ityou are strengthening the basisfor the other side to shatter and destroy you and weakening your basis to do the opposite. Thereis no way to get around this fact; as long as the old ruling class holds state power, there is no wayto get around the need to shatter and destroy and dismantle its apparatus of state power and toconstruct a radically different state power in its place. And if you let go of thateither explicitlyin conception, as Khrushchev did, or even inadvertently and unwittingly, without consciouslydoing sothe consequences are disastrous. You not only can lose everything you've wonthrough ardent and heroic struggle and great self-sacrifice, but you can be set back and shattered,defeated and shattered with demoralizing consequences for a long time to come and withreverberations broadly throughout the world. So that's one point that needs to be underscored,once again, in talking about creativelyscientifically but creativelyconfronting, and makingadvances in terms of confronting, the actual necessity we're dealing with, correctly understandingit and then transforming it more deeply toward our strategic revolutionary objectives.

The Creative Development of MLM, Not of Revisionism

From a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Second Appendix to the October 2005 Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)From Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State, A RadicallyDifferent and Far Greater Vision of Freedom

Editors Note: The following is drawn from a talk given by Bob Avakian, Chairman of theRevolutionary Communist Party, to a group of Party members and supporters in 2005. It hasbeen edited for publication here, and subheads and footnotes have been added.Some Further Thinking on: The Socialist State as a New Kind of StateI want to talk a little more about the question of democracy and dictatorship in socialist societyand about the socialist state, the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a radically different kind ofstate. Proletarian democracyas given expression as democracy for the masses of people insocialist societyshould contain some secondary and "external" features, if you will, in commonwith bourgeois democracy, including Constitutional provisions for the protection of the rights ofmasses of people, and of individuals; but in essence it is a radically different kind of democracy,fundamentally because it is an expression of a radically different kind of class rulerule by theproletariat, led by its vanguard, openly exercising dictatorship over the overthrown bourgeoisieand other proven counter-revolutionary elementsand it has radically different objectives,above all the advance to communism, and the "withering away of the state"and of democracy.Here the following passages from Engels, once again from The Origin of the Family, PrivateProperty and the State, are very relevant: He points out: [In early communal society] "therecannot yet be any talk of right in the legal sense....Within the tribe there is as yet no differencebetween rights and duties."That's worth pondering and wrangling with deeply: no difference between rights and duties. Andwe can go on to say that, in a fundamental sense, what was true in early communal society willagain be true, but in a very different waywith a different material, and ideological, basis and ina different, worldwide contextin communist society: where there is no class antagonism, thereis no separation, in a fundamental sense, between rights and duties. There is no separationbetween rights and duties characteristic of class society, is another way to say this. All rights andduties will be afforded and carried out consciously and voluntarilyand there will be no needfor special institutions to enforce duties and to protect rightsno need for the state, nor forformal structures of democracy. This, of course, does not mean that there will no longer be aneed for a government in communist society, for decision making and administration. That needwill persist, and understanding this is a crucial part of understanding the difference between ascientific and on the other hand a utopian view of communismand of the struggle to get tocommunism (I will have more to say on this, too, as we go along). But the state is not the samething as, not identical with, government: the state, once again, is an organ, an instrument, of class

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

suppression and dictatorship, and its existence is always and everywhere an expression of theexistence of class antagonisms. Now, at the same time, the character of the proletarian state, andthe way in which power is exercised under the dictatorship of the proletariat, mustinaccordance with, and to advance toward, the fundamental objectives of the communistrevolutionalso be radically different from any previous kind of state.In order to get into this, and as a foundation for it, I want to paraphrase and review threesentences on democracy which I have formulated as a concentration of some fundamental points.To paraphrase, the first of these sentences is: In a world marked by profound class divisions andsocial inequalities, to talk about democracy without talking about the class content of thatdemocracy, and which class it serves, is meaningless or worse. And second: In such a situation,there cannot be any such thing as democracy for all or "pure democracy"one class or anotherwill rule and will institute the forms of rule and of democracy that serve its interests. Andtherefore the conclusion of this, if you will, the third sentence, is: The essential question anddividing line is whether this class rule and the corresponding forms of democracy serve toreinforce fundamental class divisions and social inequalities, fundamental relations ofexploitation and oppression, or whether they serve the struggle to uproot and finally eliminatethese relations of exploitation and oppression.Now, I said before, in another context, that I could teach a whole college course on this, simplyby reciting these three sentences and then saying, "discuss," for the rest of the semester. And Iwasn't joking. One could easily do this. But here, let's take off from this to discuss someimportant related questions, with this as a foundation.I want to discuss the stateonce again, the armed forces and the other organs of dictatorshipinrelation to the broader institutions and functions of government in socialist society, includingdecision-making bodies, a legislature of some kind more or less, as well as centralizedinstitutions that can effect the carrying out of decisions, or an executive of some kind. I also wantto deal with the question of a Constitution and of the "rule of law" and of courts.Recently, I told some people that one of the key things I have been grappling with is how tosynthesize what's in the polemic against K. Venu1 with a principle that is emphasized by JohnStuart Mill. A pivotal and essential point in the polemic against K. Venu is that, havingoverthrown capitalism and abolished the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat mustestablish and maintain its political rule in society, the dictatorship of the proletariat, whilecontinuing the revolution to transform society toward the goal of communism and the abolitionof class distinctions and oppressive social relations, and with that the abolition of the state, ofany kind of dictatorship; and that, in order to make this possible, the proletariat must have theleadership of its vanguard communist party throughout this transition to communism. In1

This polemic, titled "Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better Than That," appears as anAppendix to the book Phony Communism Is Dead...Long Live Real Communism!, 2nd edition, by Bob Avakian(Chicago: RCP Publications, 2004). The polemic originally appeared in the 1992/17 issue of the magazine A Worldto Win.

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

continuing to grapple with these fundamental questions, I have become convinced that thisprinciple articulated by Millthat people should hear arguments presented not only as they arecharacterized by those who oppose them, but as they are put forward by ardent advocates ofthose positionsis something that needs to be incorporated and given expression in the exerciseof the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is one elementnot the entirety, but one elementofwhat I have been reaching for and wrangling with in terms of what we have formulated as a newsynthesis. And in line with that, while the proletariat has to maintain firm control of the stateand, particularly in the early stages of socialism and for some time, this is expressed in terms ofthe leadership of the vanguard party of the proletariatwhile the proletariat in that way has tomaintain firm control of the state; and while the key organs and instruments of the state have tobe responsible to the party (and I'll talk more about that and other aspects of this shortly); there isalso a question of how can the masses be increasingly drawn, not only into the exercise of statepower, but also into other forms, other aspects of the governing and administration of society,and the law-making of society; and how can the political process that goes on in socialist society,on the basis of the firm control by the proletariat over the state as exercised in a concentratedway through the leadership of its partyhow on that basis can the political process lead to, orcontribute to, the kind of ferment that I've been talking about as an essential element of whatneeds to go on in socialist society, including the emphasis on the importance of dissent.So here "the John Stuart Mill principle" comes in, in a certain waywithin the framework ofproletarian rule and not raised as some kind of absolute, outside of and above the relation ofclasses and the class character of the state. I don't have time to go into a whole discussion ofMill, but in the "Democracy" book (Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That?) I made thepoint that in fact Mill did not insist on and apply a principle of unrestricted liberty in someuniversal and absolute sensehe didn't think it applied to workers on strike; he didn't think itapplied to people in "backward countries" who, as he saw it, were not yet ready to governthemselves, and he implemented that by being an official in the East India Company, a majorinstrumentality of colonial depredation and ravaging in Asia and other places. But nonetheless,leaving those contradictions aside here, there is a point that Mill is raising, about how peopleshould be able to hear arguments from their ardent advocates. And I think one of the ways inwhich this should find expression in the governing of socialist society is thatwithin theframework where, first of all, the state is firmly controlled by the proletariat, and second, there isconsultation between the party and the masses and the implementation of forms, such as thosethat were developed through the Cultural Revolution in China, forms that combine basic masseswith people from administrative posts or technical or educational professionals, or people in thearts who are professionals, etc., in decision-making and administrative tasks on all the differentlevels and in all the different spheres of societywhile that should go on as a foundation, thereshould be a certain element of contested elections within the framework of whatever theConstitution of the socialist society is at the time. And one of the reasons why this should happenis that it will contribute to implementing what is positive about this John Stuart Mill pointthatpeople need to hear positions not just as they are characterized by those who oppose them but asthey are put forward by ardent advocates of those positionswhat is positive about this inrelation to our strategic objectives, of continuing the socialist revolution toward the goal ofcommunism, the ways in which the implementation of this principle will contribute to political

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

and overall intellectual ferment in socialist society and to the flowering of critical and creativethinking and, yes, of dissent, within socialist societywhich will make that society more vibrantand will overall strengthen not only the willingness but the conscious determination of themasses of the people, including among the intellectuals, to not only preserve and defend thatsociety but to continue revolutionizing society toward the goal of communism, together with therevolutionary struggle throughout the world.One of the things that should be really understood about what we have characterized as the newsynthesis, is that it envisions a much more wild society than has heretofore existed, politicallyspeaking. I mean, things got very wild in the Cultural Revolution in China. But I am envisioningthis in a different sense, on a more ongoing basisone in which there is a solid core, andelasticity is giving rise to all kinds of contention on the basis of the solid core and within theframework in which the proletariat is (a) firmly in control of the state, and (b) is leading, and inthat sense, in control of the overall political apparatus, even those parts that are not strictlyspeaking the state in the literal sense of being organs of political dictatorship and suppression,such as the armed forces, where the leadership of the party, and with that the rule of theproletariat, has to be very clear and firm.The reason that I'm wrangling with this idea of having contested elections to, in part, selectpeople to legislaturesin other words to have part of the selection, not the whole, but part of theselection of people to legislative bodies on local areas, and even on the national level, open tocontestationhas to do with the Mill principle. It has to do with the principle (which I'vearticulated before) about how even reactionaries should be able to publish some books insocialist societyall of which, of course, is highly unorthodox [laughs] and, to say the least,controversial, especially in the international communist movement. But I do believe that themasses themselvesif they're actually going to rule and transform society and understand to anincreasingly deepening level what is involved in transforming the worldwill be better servedby some contention in this kind of way, and that it has to find some expression other than justpeople being able to be guaranteed certain "first amendment" rights (freedom of speech and ofassembly, of the right to dissent and protest, and so on), which they should have, within theframework of the proletarian dictatorship. So that's one element that I'm wrestling with.Along with that, as there has been in previous socialist societies, there needs to be a Constitution.A Constitution, however, should always be understood, as should the law, as a moving, dynamicthing. At any given time it has relative identity. You can't say it's completely relative, or that it'sessentially relative at any given time, or it would have no meaning thenit would be whateveranybody wanted it to be, and that's not a Constitution. A Constitution is something that setsdown what are the rules of the game so that everybody can, on the one hand, in one importantaspect, feel at ease, and, at the same time, can contribute fully to the struggle to transformsociety, while knowing, in effect, what the rules are. But it's a moving thing in the sense that aConstitution will change as the advance is carried forward toward communism. A Constitution isa reflection in the superstructure of where you are in the overall transformation of society,including in the economic basejust as the law, as Marx pointed out, is essentially a reflectionof the property relations of society (and the production relations at the foundation of those

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

property relations) at any given time. And there will be a need, as there was in China, forexample, for different Constitutions at different stages in that process. You will need to, in effect,tear up the old Constitution and rewrite it, as you advance, particularly by leaps, from one stageto another. But, at any given time, a Constitution plays an important role, I believeor shouldplay an important rolein socialist society. For example, I firmly believe that the army, and alsoin a fundamental sense the courts, especially courts that have a more societal-wide impact, andthe essential administrative bodies, should be particularly responsible to the vanguard party insocialist society. But, here's where the contradiction comes in. I also believe they should beresponsible to the Constitution. That is, to get right down on the ground, the army should not beable to be mobilized to go against the Constitution, even while it's being led by the party. Andhere you can see a potentially roaring tension. But if the party can lead the armed forces to gooutside of and above and beyond the Constitution, then the Constitution is meaningless. Andthen, in effect, you do have an arbitrary rule whereby it's merely the party and whatever the partyis deciding at a given timethose are the rules, and that's how they'll be enforced.Now, this gets really tricky if you think about Cultural Revolutions in socialist society. Whathappens then? Well [laughs] revolutions are revolutionsa lot of things get suspended, but theyhave to be reconstituted. And there has to be some sort of leading core and rules even within that.That was the point of the Circulars that were put out by the party leadership in the GreatProletarian Cultural Revolution in China, for example. But on a more ongoing basis, you can'tsimply run society in such a way that whoever gets control of the party at a given time sets andenforces the rules according to whatever they think the rules should be at a given time. Or elsethe masses will not feel at ease and, in fact, you will open the gates much more widely to therestoration of capitalism and a bourgeois dictatorship, a dictatorship of exploiters and oppressorsof the masses. So there's real tension, and you can concentrate it in that formulationthat thearmy, for example, should be responsible to the party and led by the party, but it should also beresponsible and accountable to the Constitution, and if people rally against the party, forexample, in mass dissent, it should not be that the party can mobilize the army to carry outbloody suppression of those masses, or to suppress their right to raise that dissent against theparty. So this has a lot of acute tension, or potentially acute tension, built into it. But again I amfirmly convinced that, in order for the masses to really increasingly become masters of society,these kind of principles, and the institutionalization of these principles, are necessary in socialistsociety.This, then, raises the question that I call the "Islamic Republic of Iran question." People will say:"Well, okay, that sounds goodConstitutional rights, even the army can't violate theConstitution, yes, have some contested electionsbut how are you going to be different thanIran where they have the Supreme Islamic Council and it has final veto power over whathappens. You're not really going to be different than that, are you?" Well, we aren't and we are.We aren't in the sense that we don't intend to have the fundamental question of state power putup for whoever can grab it. In fact, a Constitution has to embody what the character of the statepower isnot only what the role of the army is in relation to the party, for example, but what isthe character of the production relations, in addition to having a whole dimension of the rights ofthe people and, yes, of individuals.

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Why do you need a Constitution? Because as Mao pointed outthis was an important thing thathe brought forwardin socialist society there remains a contradiction between the people andthe government, or the people and the state. This was not well understood before Mao. Hepointed this out, if I remember correctly, in "On the Correct Handling of the ContradictionsAmong the People." And the need for a Constitution and for constitutional provisions,protections and rights is an expression of the recognition of that realitythat even where thestate is in the hands of the proletariat, and is a positive state, is a good state, is a state that'smaintaining the rule of the proletariat and putting its weight behind the further revolutionizationof society and support of the world revolutioneven there, there has to be protection againstsimply trampling on individuals or sections of society in the name of, or even in the legitimatepursuit of, the larger social and worldwide good.So this is an important contradiction, and this is why you need a Constitution. And in myopinion, it is why you also do need a "rule of law." This has to do with the criticism that I raisedin "Two Great Humps" (a talk I gave in the latter half of the 1990s)2 of Lenin's formulation thatdictatorship is rule, unrestricted rule, and specifically rule unrestricted by law. Now, to be fair toLenin, he was saying this in the very, very early stages of the new Soviet republic, when not thatmuch experience had been accumulated about the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat,and under very urgent and desperate circumstances. And he was not putting this forward as ageneral conclusion about what the character of the governance should be throughout thetransition to communism. He didn't even fully understand what that transition would look likeyet. But, reflecting on it with historical perspective, that is not a correct statement of what adictatorship is or should be. There do need to be laws. And there does need to be a "rule of law,"or else there are no laws. I mean this in the sense that the law does have to be applied accordingto the actual character of the society and what is provided for in the Constitution and the lawsthemselvesit has to be applied in the same way to everybody and everything. Now, part of thelaw, an essential part of the law, must be and will be an expression of dictatorship over thebourgeoisie, and suppression of counter-revolutionaries. But then you do not simply declaresomebody a counter-revolutionary and deprive them of rights without any process of law, or elseyou're again opening the gates to arbitrary rule and the restoration of bourgeois dictatorship. Sothat's another intense contradiction.

The full title of the talk is Getting Over the Two Great Humps: Further Thoughts onConquering the World. Excerpts from this talk appeared in the Revolutionary Worker newspaper(now Revolution) and are available online at revcom.us. The series "On Proletarian Democracyand Proletarian DictatorshipA Radically Different View of Leading Society" appeared in RW#1214 through 1226 (Oct. 5, 2003-Jan. 25, 2004). The series "Getting Over the Hump" appearedin RW #927, 930, 932, and 936-940 (Oct. 12, Nov. 2, Nov. 16, and Dec. 14, 1997 through Jan.18, 1998). Two additional excerpts from this talk are "Materialism and Romanticism: Can WeDo Without Myth?" in RW #1211 (Aug. 24, 2003) and "Re-reading George Jackson" in RW#968 (Aug. 9, 1998). All of these articles can be found online at revcom.us.

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

What about independent judiciary? In my opinion, the judiciary, as to whether it should be

independentit should and it shouldn't. In one real sense, it should be independentin the sensethat it shouldn't be, in any proximate, immediate sense simply following the dictates of the party.There should be law, and things should operate according to the law. On the other hand, and inan overall sense, and especially the more we are talking about a court whose decisions influencethings on a large scale, and especially courts whose decisions affect all of society, this, too, hasto be under the leadership of the party at the same time as it is beholden not only to the party butto the Constitution. Once again, intense contradiction.So these are some things I'm wrestling with, and here the "Islamic Republic of Iran question"does arise, once again. Now there are some fundamental differences between us and what I'menvisioning in speaking of the Islamic Republic of Iran (as the embodiment of a certain kind ofrule). First of all, we're not theocratic fundamentalists! That is not merely a statement withoutcontent, but makes a profound differenceour world outlook, our political objectives, areprofoundly different. But as true and as important as that is, that's still not enough, there is stillmore to be wrestled with in the sense of: the party cannot, simply and arbitrarily and by going"outside of the rules," overturn what may be happening in society, according to the "rules" ofsociety at any given timemobilizing the army, once again, or other organs of the state, to dothat. If revolutionaries in the party, or the party collectively, feel that the society is going in thedirection back to capitalism, and there's no way to prevent this other than through the kind ofthing that Mao unleashed in the Cultural Revolution, then that's what the Party will have tounleashand then everything is up for grabs, "all bets are off," so to speak. But, in my opinion,if you allow the party to simply and arbitrarily decide what the rules are, what the law is, how thejudiciary should operate, whether or not constitutional provisions should be extended or whetherrights should be taken away, without any due process of law; if you allow that, you areincreasing the potential and strengthening the basis for the rise of a bourgeois clique to powerand for the restoration of capitalism.So these are all things that need to be further wrangled with. But the contradictions that are beingtouched on here have to do with the character of socialism as a transition to communism, and notyet communist society itself, and with the need to draw the masses intofirst of all, the need todraw the masses more fully into the running of and the transforming of society; and second ofall, it has to do with the whole new synthesis and, in particular, the epistemological dimension ofthat and how that interpenetrates with the political dimension. In other words, to put it inconcentrated terms, how are the masses going to come to know the world as fully as possible, inorder to actually transform it; how are they going to more fully understand the complexity ofthings and what is right and wrong, what is true and not true, in order to be able to become morefully the masters of society and to transform it toward the goal of communism? The things thatI'm wrestling with have to do with and are being taken up in that kind of framework. But wecan't get away from the fact that there is one thing that CANNOT be done, and that is: theproletariat cannot, in a fundamental sense, share power with other classesthat is, the state insocialist society cannot be a state that serves different class interestsbecause, even while theproletariat must maintain and apply the strategic orientation of building a united front under itsleadership, all the way to the achievement of communism, it remains a profound truth that only

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

the proletariat, as a class, has a fundamental interest in abolishing all class distinctions andeverything bound up with class divisions, in both the economic base and the political andideological superstructure of society. What exists and is concretized in law, in a Constitution, inthe nature of the state, has to reflect not only the rule of the proletariat but also the objectives ofthe proletariat in advancing toward the abolition of class distinctions and the "4 Alls" andthereby the need for the state. And this has to take concrete forms, which will get embodied insuccessive Constitutions. But, as important as that is, on another level that is only the outward,superstructural expression of what needs to be going on in terms of transforming those "4Alls"continuing to transform the economic base, to revolutionize the world outlook of thepeople, within the party as well as in society overall, and to transform the political institutions todraw more and more masses into them, and to move to continually narrow and eventuallyeliminate the difference between the party and the broader masses in the running of the state andin the determination of the direction of society.This is the way in which the proletarian state has to be firmly in the hands of the proletariat; but,at the same time, in accordance with the interests of the proletariat, it has to be different thanevery other kind of state: it has to be not only reinforcing the existing economic base andsuperstructure, but actually transforming the economic base and the superstructure, together withthe advance of the world revolution, toward the goal of communism. This has to be reflected inall these institutions I'm talking aboutof the state and of government, of law and Constitution.And all this, once again, involves very acute contradictions. As I have pointed out many times, itis very easy to promulgate, to theoretically conceive of and popularize, the idea of all elasticitywhich is another way of saying bourgeois democracy, because that is what it will devolve into,that is what it will become. And we've also learned from experience that it is easy to veer in thedirection of all solid core and a linear view of how you advance toward communism, how youcarry forward the socialist transition: linear in the sense that everything is extended out as a linefrom the partyit's the party leading the masses to do this, the party leading the masses to dothat. Yes, in an overall sense, it is necessary for the party to lead the masses, as long as there is aneed for a vanguard party; but it is a very complex and contradictory process that I think we haveto envision and that is envisioned in this new synthesis, which has to do with unleashing a lot ofmass upheaval, turmoil, tumult, debate, dissent, and thrashing it through among and togetherwith the masses, in order for the masses, in growing numbers, to synthesize what's true andcorrect and revolutionary out of all that. And, yes, on that basis, to suppress what actually needsto be suppressed, but also to carry forward what needs to be carried forward, and to dealcorrectly, at any point, with the two different types of contradictions (contradictions among thepeople and contradictions between the people and the enemy). This is a different way, a not solinear way. It's not like you're fly-fishing [laughing] and throwing a line outit's much more"throwing out" a process that goes in many different directions and then working through,together with the masses, to synthesize it, without letting go of the core of everything. And that'sthe very difficult part, to do that without letting go of the core of everything.So there is the challenge of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, todig up the soilmaterially and ideologically, in the economic base and the superstructurethatmust be uprooted and abolished, in order to get to communism, to the realization of the "4 Alls,"

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

expression to the ways in which the socialist state actually is radically different from all previouskinds of states and actually is moving toward its own eventual abolition, even whileand here'sanother contradictioneven while that abolition will require a whole process, constituting awhole world-historical epoch, through which the necessary material and ideological conditionsfor communism are created, not just in a particular country but on a world scale.I think we have come to see, from the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat so farinsifting through and summing up this first stage of proletarian revolutions and socialist societyand projecting to the future, we've come to understand more fully, and have much more a senseof the complexity, of the fact that this is a long-term process, involving a whole historical epoch,as contrasted even with what Lenin understood at the time he died in 1924, and certainly incontrast with what we would have to say, with historical perspective, were the more naive viewsof Marx and Engels concerning the abolition or the "withering away" of the state. Marx andEngels more or less thought that once you socialize thingsthey were looking at this happeningfirst in a more capitalistically developed societythat once you socialize ownership of themeans of production under the rule of the proletariat, it would be not that long of a period, andnot that profound and complex a struggle, to get to where more and more of the people would bedrawn into the administration of society, and the state could accordingly wither away. And we'velearned that this is rather naive, not surprisingly. [Using a deliberately sarcastic sounding voice:]"He said Marx and Engels were naive." [laughter] Yes, he did. Because we're historicalmaterialists and not religious and idealist people; and in this aspect, the understanding of Marxand Engels was very undeveloped, not surprisingly. But we've learned much more through, first(after the very short-lived and limited experience of the Paris Commune), the Soviet Revolutionand then the Chinese Revolution and the Cultural Revolution in Chinaand looking at theinternational dimension of this much more fully in dialectical relation with the advance in anyparticular socialist countryhow complex this will be, and how repeatedly the contradictionsthat are driving this will assume acute expression and there will have to be another leap forward,in order, first of all, to preserve proletarian rule, but much more fully in order to advance itfurther, to carry out further transformations in the base and the superstructure, together withsupporting and advancing revolutionary struggles throughout the world.So, in this context I want to come back and speak more directly to the solid core with a lot ofelasticityand elasticity on the basis of the necessary solid core. Now in talks I've given on"Elections, Democracy and Dictatorship, Resistance and Revolution,"3 I spoke about fourobjectives in relation to the solid core with state power. Now, the whole thing can becharacterized, and I have characterized it, in the formulation that the point is "to hold on to statepower while making sure that this state power is worth holding on to." And of course that's aboiled down, or basic and simple, concentration of a much more complex phenomenon andprocess. But the four objectives that relate to that are: 1) holding on to power; 2) making sure3

This was a talk given by Bob Avakian before the elections in 2004. Audio file of this talk isavailable online for listening and downloading at bobavakian.net.

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

that the solid core is expanded to the greatest degree possible, and is not a static thing, but iscontinually expanding to the greatest degree possible at every point; 3) working consistentlytoward the point where that solid core will no longer be necessary, and there will no longer be adistinction between that and the rest of society; and 4) giving expression to the greatest amountof elasticity at any given time on the basis of that solid core.The dialectical interplay of these things is another way of expressing what's involved in what I'vedescribed as a nonlinear process of, on the one hand, continuing to exercise the dictatorship ofproletariat, and on the other handthrough this whole tumultuous and wrenching process, andthrough a succession of leapsnot only holding on to power, but transforming the character ofthat power, as the economic base and the superstructure as a whole are transformed, in dialecticalrelation with each other and in dialectical relation with the advance of the overall worldrevolution toward the goal of communism on a world scale.

Views on Socialism and Communism: A Radically New Kind of State,

A Radically Different and Far Greater Vision of FreedomFrom a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

10

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist

Movement: Letters to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) fromthe Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2005-2008(With a Reply from the CPN(M), 2006)Many people in the world today are wondering how to evaluate the recent developments with therevolution in Nepalwhere, after 10 years of an inspiring Peoples War led by the CommunistParty of Nepal (Maoist), that war has come to an end, the CPN(M) is now the leading party inthe recently elected Constituent Assembly and the Partys Chairman, Prachanda, is the PrimeMinister of the government. Does the current trajectory in Nepal and the course taken by theCPN(M) represent an historic new thing, a victory and breakthrough in advancing the communistrevolution in the 21st century, as some have claimed; oras many others feardoes thisrepresent a setback and betrayal of the goals of the revolution and of the heroic struggle waged toachieve them, and a serious departure from the communist cause that the CPN(M) claims to befighting for?The answer to this is of great importance, and can only be arrived at by going deeply into the keyquestions of ideological and political line that are involved; and this needs to be seen in thecontext of the crossroads that the international communist movement is facing, which focuses onthe fundamental question, as posed in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifestofrom the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA: whether to be a vanguard of the future or aresidue of the past.This article serves as an introduction to an exchange between the Revolutionary CommunistParty, USA (RCP,USA) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)1 (CPN[M]) over a period ofseveral years between October 2005 and November 2008three letters written during thisperiod by the RCP,USA and one reply by the CPN(M)which deal with mountingdisagreements on key questions of communist principle and revolutionary strategy. (These letterscan be found online at revcom.us.)

Some History and Background

Revolutions, and especially revolutions of the oppressed led by genuine communists, are all toorare in the world todaya world which cries out desperately for such revolutions. Whenever astruggle emerges that is aimed at opposing the hold of imperialism on even a small part of theglobe, and when that revolution has the goal of transforming fundamental relations that have agrip on humanity today, the success or failure of that struggle is of great importance and hasprofound implications. In February 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) dared to beginsuch a struggle, launching a revolutionary Peoples War and raising the red flag of communistrevolution on the roof of the world. This raised the hopes of not only the people in Nepal andthat region of the world, but of all those who are yearning for this kind of liberating struggle tobe undertaken, and to achieve a new revolutionary state power, in many more places all over the1The CPN(M) has changed its name to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) following the merger in January 2009with the revisionist Communist Party of Nepal-Unity Centre (Mashal).

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

world. At a time when people have been sold the lie that communism is dead, and that there is noreal possibility of breaking free from the death-grip of imperialism (and relations of exploitationand oppression in general), when it is constantly repeated that there is no viable alternative to themonstrous system of capitalism-imperialism, many people were greatly inspired by the daringand lofty goals that these revolutionaries had taken up.For 10 years battle raged back and forth in the Himalayan kingdom, but despite viciousrepression, the revolutionary forces grew, as they drove the armed forces of the old state out ofmost of the countryside and set up red base areas where peasants, ethnic minorities, women andmillions of other oppressed got a first taste of real liberation. The stated goal of the Peoples Warwas to oppose the monarchy that had ruled Nepal for over 200 years, to establish a newdemocratic statea state which would result from the overthrow and defeat of imperialism andfeudalism, and other reactionary forces aligned with imperialism and feudalism, and whichwould represent and embody the rule of the proletariat, led by its communist vanguard, headingan alliance with the masses of the peasantry and other classes and groups that had been united inthe struggle against imperialism and feudalismand then to carry forward the revolution tosocialism and communism. This was explicitly seen by the CPN(M) as part of, and ascontributing to, the world revolution.This was given political and ideological support by revolutionary communists through-out theworld, including the RCP,USA. Our Party made significant efforts to popularize the heroicstruggle and the communist aims of this rising of the most oppressed masses in Nepal, led by thecomrades of the CPN(M). We followed closely the twists and turns of the Peoples War and therevolutionary new things that the struggle brought forward. And we paid attention to how theleadership was applying the basic principles of Marxism to the concrete conditions they wereconfronting, with specific focus on the fact that they were popularizing the final goal ofcommunism and the establishment of revolutionary state power as the necessary next step towardthat final goal; how new democracyas opposed to bourgeois democracy was being aimedfor; how they envisioned the united front under the leadership of the proletariat; and questions ofstrategy for winning the revolution and establishing a new, revolutionary state power.As the revolution advanced, it not surprisingly encountered new difficulties and challenges thatcentered on how to actually accomplish winning state power, how to transform the economy of abackward country in a world dominated by imperialism and especially threatened by thepowerful neighboring countries of India and China (the latter no longer a socialist country but areactionary state ruled by communists in name but capitalists in fact), and how to forge a unitedfront drawing in the middle strata of society while maintaining the focus on the revolutionarygoals and continuing to provide communist leadership. These are the kinds of challenges that anygenuine revolutionary struggle will encounter, and there are never simple solutions, or readymade formulas, that can be applied to solving these complex problems. In this context, in thelarger context of the defeat of the first stage of communist revolution in the world (which cameto an end with the reversal of the revolution and the restoration of capitalism in China, shortlyafter the death of Mao Tsetung in 1976), and in response to the need to further develop, in theoryand practice, a new stage of communism capable of meeting these challenges, struggle emergedover what the actual goals of the revolution should be and how to achieve them.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

Our Party paid attention to all of these developments, in accordance with our fundamentalinternationalist orientationour understanding of the responsibilities of all communists toapproach revolution as a process of world-historic struggle which must aim for, and finallyachieve, communism on a world scale. From this standpoint we became increasingly alarmedat the direction the CPN(M) leadership was taking, both in its theoretical formulations and inthe related abandoning of the original objectives of the revolution. These disagreementscentered on: 1) the nature of the state, and specifically the need to establish a new state led bythe proletariat and its communist vanguard, as opposed to a strategy centering on participatingin, and what amounts to perfecting, the reactionary state (minus the monarchy, in the case ofNepal); 2) more specifically, the need to establish, as the first step, upon the overthrow of theold order, a new democratic state which would undertake the development of the economicbase and corresponding institutions of the nation free from imperialist domination and feudalrelations, based on new production and social relations brought forward through the course ofthe Peoples War, as opposed to establishing a bourgeois republic which focuses on developingcapitalism and finding a place within the world imperialist network; 3) the dynamic role oftheory and two-line struggle (struggle within communist parties and among communistsgenerally over questions of ideological and political line), vs. eclectics, pragmatism andattempts to rely on tactical finesse and what amounts to bourgeois realpolitikmaneuveringwithin the framework of domination by imperialism (and other major powers) and the existingrelations of exploitation and oppression.With regard to each of these three decisive dimensions, the leadership of the CPN(M) hasincreasingly insisted on the wrong view and approach, which has tragically led them to theabandonment and betrayal of the cause they were initially fighting for. In the face of these verydisheartening developments, we have been faced with the need to carry out sharp struggleagainst this disastrous course, and we have consistently sought the best and most appropriatemeans to make our criticisms known to the CPN(M), and to the parties and organizations thatmake up the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)to carry out this struggle in a waythat would actually be of political and ideological assistance to the revolution and would not aidthe imperialists and reactionaries, who are the bitter enemies of the emancipation of theoppressed (and ultimately all humanity) and are constantly seeking to divide, defeat and crushthe forces of revolution and communism.In approaching this line struggle, the RCP has proceeded from the understanding thatcommunists the world over not only have the responsibility to apply the science of communismto the problems of making revolution in ones own country but also, to use Lenins words, tosupport this struggle, this, and only this line in every country without exception. It is the dutyof communists to understand to the best of their ability the crucial questions of political andideological line as they take place on an international level, and to do everything in their powerto help the revolutionary communist line defeat the influence of revisionism (betrayal ofcommunism in the name of communism) in every country, and all the more so when the outcomeof the struggle over ideological and political line has so much immediate impact on a veryadvanced revolutionary struggle such as that taking place in Nepal.This two-line struggle has been conducted in a serious and disciplined way. Even as the CPN(M)took further steps toward the destruction of the revolution it had been leading, the RCP,USA

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

continued to carry out the struggle privately, in light of the fact that the CPN(M) had made clearit favored such an approach, and with the aim of limiting the ability of the imperialists and otherenemies to speculate on differences in the communist ranks and of creating the most favorableconditions for the CPN(M) itself to debate and struggle out these line questions. Unfor-tunately,the CPN(M) leadership has failed to really respond to, or to engage in any substantive way with,the fundamental questions at issue during this whole period, instead insisting that the heart of thematter is tactics, and not basic principles and strategic orientation, from which tactics must andwill flow. In effect, they have dismissed criticisms over these fundamental questions with arepeated message that was itself a gross expression of pragmatism and empiricism: Weappreciate your concerns, but there is no need to worrytrust uswe have been successful sofar, so what we are doing now must be right.At this point, however, developments in the CPN(M), and in particular the further acceleration ofthe revisionist degeneration of its line, have made it necessary to conclude that the policy, so farcarried out by the RCP, of only conducting this struggle privately, is no longer correct. Webelieve it is necessary at this point to make this struggle public, with the aim of enabling therevolutionary movement throughout the world, and people who support revolution andcommunism (or who are wrestling with the question of whether revolution and communism arenot only necessary but possible), to have as accurate and full an understanding as possible of thenature and development of this crucial two-line struggle.

The Current Situation

Today, as a result of elections held in April 2008, the CPN(M) is the leading party of the newlyformed Constituent Assembly in Nepal. The central Party leaders loudly promise to be faithful tothe new federal democratic republic, i.e., a bourgeois state which is founded upon and protectsthe reactionary class relations in Nepal, and these leaders multiply their assurances to theinternational community (read: imperialist and reactionary states such as the U.S., GreatBritain, India and China) of their intention to keep Nepal firmly cemented into the worldimperialist system. The organs of peoples power built up in the countryside of Nepal throughthe revolutionary war have been dissolved, the old police forces have been brought back, thePeoples Liberation Army (PLA), although never defeated on the battlefield, has been disarmedand confined to cantonments while the old reactionary army (formerly the Royal Nepal Army,now renamed the Nepal Army) which previously feared to travel outside its barracks, except inlarge heavily armed convoys, is now free to patrol the countrywith the blessing of a CPN(M)Defense Minister. The naked renunciation by the CPN(M) of communist principlessuch as theneed to smash the old bourgeois state and establish a new proletarian power, the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, and the actual goal of communism itself, to make a radical rupture with alltraditional relations and traditional ideas, in both words and deedshas shocked many insideand outside of Nepal. Within the CPN(M) itself many are recoiling at these open manifestationsof revisionismin which some communist slogans and verbiage are used to dress up what isessentially a capitalist worldview and political program. Outside of Nepal, revisionists all overthe world, few of whom ever supported the Peoples War, are overjoyed at the course of eventsand write article after article lauding the CPN(M) and the current line it is carrying out. On theother hand, those who had supported the Peoples War, in the hopes that it would usher in a newsocial order and serve the advance of the world revolution, are increasingly frustrated anddisheartened by developments in Nepal.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

While there has been opposition within the CPN(M), it has unfortunately become increasinglyevident, especially after the November 2008 National Convention (which will be addressedbelow), that the main opposition forces inside the CPN(M) who have been upset by theabandonment of the revolution have themselves been unable to develop a coherent critique of therevisionist line and, as a result, are deceiving themselves, and are at least objectively serving todeceive others, as to the actual program and nature of the CPN(M), a party headed for completeabandonment of the cause of communism in reality, while (at least for a time) upholding it inname.

The Turn to Revisionism,

Its Roots and ImplicationsIn fact, the bitter fruits that we see today in Nepal are not a sudden act of betrayal by a few Partyleadersthey are the logical and foreseeable outcome of a process that has been emerging in theCPN(M) over a number of years, a process in which the revolutionary communist line that (withwhatever weaknesses and shortcomings it may have had) led to the initiation and the advance ofthe Peoples War, was replaced in the CPN(M) by a revisionist line on a whole series of questions.By line we mean the outlook and orientation, strategic conception and method which guidepolitical activity in one direction or another. The decisive turn took place in October 2005 when asharp struggle within the Party was resolved in a revisionist fashion, as we will discuss below.This whole experience shows once again how insightful Mao Tsetung was when he emphasizedthat ideological and political line is decisive. As Mao put it:If ones line is incorrect, ones downfall is inevitable, even with the control of the central, local and armyleadership. If ones line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier at first, there will be soldiers, and even ifthere is no political power, political power will be gained. This is borne out by the historical experience of ourParty and by that of the international communist movement since the time of Marx. The crux of the matter isline. This is an irrefutable truth.

When the line struggle first erupted in the CPN(M) it focused on what might have appeared tomany as abstract questions of democracy and the experience of socialist revolution, and manycommunists in Nepal and around the world failed to understand the life and death implicationsof these questions for the direction and fate of the revolution. But the questions involved in theideological struggle regarding the revolution in Nepal are, fundamentally and in the lastanalysis, a matter of whether to fight for a communist world, or to make the best of theexisting imperialist-dominated world; whether to accept the proposition that society is, and willindefinitely be, organized on a capitalist basis, or whether to fight to overthrow that system andbuild a wholly different kind of society without classes and exploitation. Not surprisingly, theterms of struggle in Nepal did not express themselves openly in this way, and even less so at theearly stages of the struggle. While a few leaders of the CPN(M), especially Baburam Bhattarai,have loudly proclaimed loyalty to democracymeaning Western-style bourgeoisdemocracyand expressed a negative verdict on the whole first wave of proletarian revolution,most of the other central Party leaders proclaimed just as loudly their support for the goals ofestablishing new democracy, socialism and communism while insisting that limiting thestruggle to a fight for a transitional (read bourgeois) republic was only a tactic. Indeed,CPN(M) leaders in general have continually tried to focus the debate on the question oftactics, as if the essential question were how to achieve a federal democratic republic, not

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

what kind of state, and more fundamentally what kind of social system, was needed in Nepaland the world.In its letters, the RCP,USA did not focus on the specific tactical questions involved,concentrating instead on the overall questions of line and general direction, while continuallylistening to and examining the arguments of the CPN(M) about how their tactics, in theirconcrete conditions, could lead to a revolutionary solution to the real problems the revolutionfaced. It is not that questions of ceasefire, negotiations, even participation in the ConstituentAssembly elections were unimportant; the crucial point was that the correctness, orincorrectness, of such tactics could not be examined and evaluated outside of the fundamentalframework of what the Party was seeking to accomplish and what outlook and orientation wasguiding its actions. Those who opposed the direction the Party was taking but focused on thetactical questions as the decisive arena, as the CPN(M) leadership insisted on doing, wereparalyzed, unable to develop a clear critique of the Partys line, and thrown into disarray andconfusion at every successive twist or turn in the political situation in Nepal or the latest politicalmaneuver of the Party leadership.Understanding the dangers facing the revolution in Nepal required really digging into theissues as things unfoldedbeing able to use the outlook and method of communism topenetrate beyond the surface phenomena to understand the essential questions involved.Even now, when it may appear easierat least to those who have maintained a revolutionaryorientationto see the non-revolutionary conclusion of the CPN(M)s course over the pastfew years, anyone content with a facile dismissal of the Partys actions, without a seriousexamination of the political arguments justifying and rationalizing those actions, will riskfalling into a similar trap in new forms in the future. For all of these reasons, and not merelyor mainly out of a concern for the historical record, it is necessary for the importantexchange between the RCP,USA and the CPN(M) to be examined by all who are concernedwith the problems of making revolution.

Struggle EruptsWhat was the situation in 2005, when the line struggle first fully erupted? The forces led by theCPN(M) had liberated most of the countryside in Nepal and advanced to the point, bothmilitarily and politically, where the prospect of nationwide victory began to loom on the horizon.Faced with this, the ruling monarch, King Gyanendra, had centralized all political power in hishands and dismissed parliament and suppressed the mainstream parliamentary parties in an effortto rally by force the entire ruling class of Nepal to smash the Peoples War. The Royal NepalArmy under the command of Gyanendra was backed by the U.S., India, China, Great Britain andother reactionary states. On the battlefield, fierce fighting took place with mixed results: somebattles were won by the Peoples Liberation Army, but in other cases the Royal Nepal Army wasable to withstand large-scale attacks and the PLA was forced to retreat with significantcasualties. The question of who would win outthe old state, represented by the king, or thenew state being built up in the liberated areas of Nepalwas very real and palpable. Thequestion of what the intermediate classes in Nepal would do, especially the urban middle classesin the Kathmandu Valley, took on a particular importance as possible end games came intofocus.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

It is not surprising that the military and political struggle on the ground was helping to focus up atheoretical and ideological struggle in the Party itself. What kind of state system would therevolution put in power once the power of the king had been defeated? How would it be similarto and how would it be different from the socialist states of the 20th century, the Soviet Unionunder Lenin and Stalin, and the Peoples Republic of China under Mao? What type of democracywould be practiced in such a system? What would be the role of political parties and elections?What kind of economic and social transformations would be carried out, and by what means?What would be the relationship between a peoples revolutionary government in Nepal and theimperialist and reactionary states? How would a revolutionary Nepal serve the worldrevolutionor would it?In February 2004, an article appeared in issue #9 of the English language organ of theCPN(M), The Worker, entitled The Question of Building a New Type of State, written byBaburam Bhattarai. The New State advanced a series of arguments about democracy anddictatorship and how they related to the struggle in Nepal that, the RCP argued, would, iffollowed, lead to not establishing a proletarian dictatorship or to abandoning it if it wereestablished. At the time this article appeared, there were also indications of an internal strugglebetween Bhattarai and a few others grouped around him, on one side, and, on the other side, thecentral Party leadership led by Chairman Prachanda. The RCP, alarmed by the positions putforward in the New State article but also hopeful that the inner party struggle could serve as ameans for the CPN(M) to reaffirm and clarify its understanding of the goals of the struggle,called on the CPN(M) to cast aside those aspects of its previous understanding and political linewhich go against the mainly correct orientation which had characterized the CPN(M)s line andleadership up to that point, and had enabled it to lead crucial and inspiring advances.The New State article basically placed the extension of formal democracy (including electionswith competing political parties) at the heart of the socialist transition and as some kind ofsupposed guarantee for the prevention of capitalist restoration, and proposed that uponreaching socialism the standing army could be dissolved and replaced by militias, and in generalthe model of the Paris Commune, with direct elections and recall of officials, was raised as amore positive model than the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Unionand China.The October 2005 letter from RCP,USA challenged the views expressed in New State and itspromotion of formal democracy as the key to a new state power. Quoting Bob Avakian, itpointed out:In a world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality, to talk about democracywithouttalking about the class nature of that democracy and which class it servesis meaningless, and worse. Solong as society is divided into classes, there can be no democracy for all: one class or another will rule, andit will uphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is: whichclass will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve the continuation, or the eventualabolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations of exploitation, oppression and inequality.

The RCP Letters could not of course go deeply into the dynamics of the socialist transition, butinstead referenced the works of Bob Avakian that have examined these issues in great depth andhave brought forward a radical re-envisioning of communism that has addressed many of theweaknesses of the first wave of the world proletarian revolution. But it was vigorously pointedout that it was a serious mistake to make the most essential question in the socialist transitionOn Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

formal democracy (and its expression in elections, competing parties, and the like) and that thiswould strengthen tendencies toward the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thearguments advanced in New State, which came to characterize the CPN(M)s overallapproach, negated the need for a powerful proletarian state that could actually allow the massesto transform the worldand to transform themselvesas part of the larger battle to overthrowimperialism throughout the world, uproot and eradicate all relations of exploitation andoppression, and emancipate all humanity.The RCPs first letter drew the very correct and important conclusion that, the proletariandictatorship is portrayed in the New State as, at best, a necessary evil. And the questioninevitably arose: with an approach like this, would it really be possible for the CPN(M) to wagethe arduous uphill battle required to shatter the old state and throw off the thousands-year olddomination of society by exploiting classes and establish proletarian rule, with all the painfulsacrifices that requires?The Manifesto from the RCP,USA, Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, published inSeptember 2008, analyzes that while two opposing tendencies have arisen in the InternationalCommunist Movement (ICM)either to cling religiously to all of the previous experience andthe theory and method associated with it or (in essence, if not in words) to throw that outaltogetherat the same time, these mirror opposite erroneous tendencies have in commonbeing mired in, or retreating into, models of the past, of one kind or another (even if theparticular models may differ): either clinging dogmatically to the past experience of the firststage of the communist revolutionor, rather, to an incomplete, one-sided, and ultimatelyerroneous understanding of thator retreating into the whole past era of bourgeois revolutionand its principles: going back to what are in essence 18th century theories of (bourgeois)democracy, in the guise, or in the name, of 21st-century communism, in effect equating this21st-century communism with a democracy that is supposedly pure or classlessademocracy which, in reality, as long as classes exist, can only mean bourgeois democracy, andbourgeois dictatorship.2The reversals of the revolution in the Soviet Union (in the mid-1950s) and in China (20 yearslater), if correctly understood, should not, and do not, provide a justification for this kind ofretreat into the past, in one form or another. As the RCPs October 2005 Letter argued:It is definitely true that the very existence of the proletarian state, a vanguard proletarian party, a standingarmy, etc., all can be transformed into their oppositea state of the bourgeoisie oppressing the masses of thepeople. The same can be said for the revolution itselfthere is no guarantee that it will continually advancetoward communismrevolutions can be and unfortunately many have been aborted or turned into theiropposites. But this is no argument not to make a revolution. Whether a state continues to advance toward theultimate goal of communism, and its own eventual withering away, depends on whether and how that state isfighting to transform all of the objective material and ideological conditions that make the existence of thestate still necessary. There is no easy way around this. Relying on the institutions and practice of formaldemocracy will not solve the problemit will not remove the contradictions that make the dictatorship of theproletariat absolutely necessary, it will only strengthen the hand of those forces who are seeking to overthrowand abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and who can draw strength in these efforts from the remaining2

We would suggest our readers study Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the RevolutionaryCommunist Party, USA which situates the principal political tendencies within the international communist movement withinthe context of the summation of the whole first wave of communist revolution and the need to unfurl a whole new wave.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

inequalities in socialist society and from the existence of reactionary and imperialist states, which for sometime are likely to be in a position of encircling socialist states as they are brought into being throughrevolutionary struggle. Abolishing or undermining the monopoly of political power and, yes of armed power,by the proletariat, and its vanguard leadershipin whatever form this is done, including by having elections inwhich the vanguard party and its role is put up for decision in general electionsthis will, for all the reasonswe have spoken to here, lead to the loss of power by the proletariat and the restoration of reactionary statepower, with everything that means.

The Resolution of the Line Struggle and the Fusion

of Two into OneUnfortunately, the line struggle within the CPN(M) at that time was resolved on a very bad basisby the Central Committee (CC) meeting held in October of 2005, even as the RCP letter wasarriving. Far from repudiating the arguments of Bhattarais New State article, the CentralCommittee adopted his core arguments. In a Communique of the CPN(M) CC, the linedifferences in the Party were dismissed as a misunderstanding. The plan to go for atransitional republic was adopted by the Party, with the proviso that this was only a tacticwhile it was asserted that the Party remained true to its long term goals of new democraticrevolution, socialism and communism. Bhattarai was reincorporated into the leadership of theParty on this basis. This method of uniting two contradictory opinions was heralded as a greatachievement and was upheld as a model for the whole international communist movement.This particular form of revisionismeclecticism, or the attempted reconciliation ofirreconcilable opposites, the combination of Marxism (in words) with revisionism in essencehad long been a problem in the thinking of the CPN(M) leaders but became enshrined anddefended as a principle in the aftermath of the 2005 inner party struggle. And it was thispolitical line and orientation that piloted the CPN(M) through the next turbulent period of classstruggle in Nepal.

The CPN(M) Answers

the RCP,USAin Practice and in TheoryThe CPN(M) leadership did not answer the RCPs October 2005 letter until July 2006; but, evenbefore there was a response in the realm of theory to the arguments that had been raised, thepractical consequences of the CPN(M)s line came pouring out.One of the key theses put forward by the 2005 CPN(M) Central Committee meeting that adoptedcore positions from New State was the notion that the immediate goal in Nepal was not newdemocratic revolutionthe form of the dictatorship of the proletariat appropriate to theoppressed nations that Mao Tsetung pioneeredbut instead a transitional republic. TheCPN(M)s July 2006 letter explained the thinking behind this:[O]ur Party has viewed the democratic republic neither as the bourgeois parliamentarian republic nordirectly as the new-democratic one. This republic, with an extensive reorganization of the state power as toresolve the problems related with class, nationality, region and sex prevailing in the country, would play a roleof transitional multiparty republic. Certainly, the reactionary class and their parties will try to transform thisrepublic into a bourgeois parliamentarian one, whereas our Party of the proletarian class will try to transform itinto a new-democratic republic.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

As the RCP letters explain in greater depth than can be gone into here, this concept of atransitional republic, and the underlying notion that it is some kind of neutral apparatus thatcan be transformed into a bourgeois state or a proletarian state, deny a basic truth of Marxismone that is not a matter of some ossified dogma but has been established, and verified over andover, through the scientific summation of wide-ranging, profound and repeatedly acuteexperience in class society over the centuries: There is no state that is not ultimately an organ ofthe rule of one class or another. Which class will the army and the other organs ofinstitutionalized power serve in this transitional republic? Will they serve the strugglingmasses to uproot the foundations of their oppression and to fight to advance the worldrevolutionor will they be in the hands of, and carry out and enforce the interests of, thereactionary classes? The RCP letters put emphasis on the class nature of the state and point out,from many different angles, that in the world today every state will have a class character andenforce definite class intereststhose of the proletariat, or those of a reactionary class (or somecombination of reactionary classes). In this light, the letters examine, and refute, the CPN(M)sargument that the existence of a monarchy makes Nepal an exceptional case, which justifies notjust a temporary united front against the monarchy but uniting anti-monarchy forces in thetransitional republic and restructur[ing] the state in what amounts to a whole stage, which isseparate from and not yet new democracy.Once the CPN(M) had decided to accept the New State position and the goal of a transitionalrepublic, it is not surprising that this orientation and commitment on its part became a majorfactor in the politics of Nepal. A series of agreements was reached with the reactionary politicalparties that had been frozen out of power by King Gyanendras dissolution of parliament onFebruary 1, 2005. The RCP,USA has made clear that its orientationand the substance of itscriticismdoes not involve an infantile approach that would rule out reaching agreements evenwith reactionary political parties to accomplish specific objectives, for example in opposition tothe monarchy. However, in the case of the CPN(M) it can be seen that these agreements werebased upon and reflected the theses that its leaders were adopting about the transitionalrepublic and related questions. In other words, the agreements with the reactionary parties werebased on the renunciation of communist objectives and principles, as expressed especially in theacceptance of a (bourgeois) democratic republic as the goal of the struggle, which again wouldactually correspond to a whole stage, separate from new democracy.With these political agreementsand a developing broad opposition to the denial of democraticrights by the king along with the continuing progress of the Peoples War centered in thecountrysideas a backdrop, in April 2006 a huge mass movement took place in the urbancenters of Nepal directed against the monarchy. This movement involved not only the proletariatand urban poor but large sections of students, intellectuals, shopkeepers and middle classelements generally in the cities. The main parliamentary political partiessuch as the revisionistCommunist Party of Nepal (Marxist Leninist) which, while communist in words, had been avicious opponent of the Peoples War, and the Nepal Congress Party, which had deepconnections with the Indian ruling class and had been the historic political party of Nepalscomprador bourgeoisie (a section of the local bourgeoisie that is tied to and serves imperialismand foreign powers)also supported this movement and strived to lead it. Faced with themassive outpourings in the urban areas, and in particular the capital, Kathmandu, on top of thepowerful Peoples War, the ruling classes of Nepal and their foreign backers in the U.S., India

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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and elsewhere, decided that it was necessary to abandon the policy of counting on the absolutemonarchy to restore order. A ceasefire took place and negotiations began between theparliamentary parties and the CPN(M) which led in November of that same year to theComprehensive Peace Accords, establishing an interim government with the participation of theCPN(M), restricting the PLA to cantonments, and setting the ground rules for elections for aConstituent Assembly charged with writing a new constitution for the country.Clearly, the eruption of the urban mass movement and the end to the absolute monarchy createdimportant new conditions for the revolutionary struggle in Nepal, and certainly it was necessary forthe communists to take these new conditions into account, make necessary changes in their tacticsand policies and strive to win over the vacillating urban sections who had risen up against the kingbut were full of illusions that the return to democracy would solve the problems of the country.It was in this context of the end of the absolute monarchy that the CPN(M) leadership finallyanswered the RCP,USA in a letter dated 1 July 2006. The CPN(M) response indignantlydismissed the arguments of the RCP as being a mere repetition of the ABCs of Marxism. Itstrue that the correct understanding of the class nature of the state is one of the ABCs ofMarxismthat is, it is a fundamental truth established through scientific analysis and synthesisof vast, and all-too-often bitter, experience, with tragic consequences when this truth has beenignored. In this connection, the question sharply poses itself: Even if it were truewhich it wasnotthat the RCPs criticisms of the CPN(M) merely restated certain ABCs of Marxism,including on the basic nature of the state, how would that justify abandoning such basicprinciples (ABCs), as the CPN(M) has done?In its response, the CPN(M) seeks to wriggle out of this by declaring that of course it agrees withthe RCP that strategically it is class relations that determine the nature of the state, but then itgoes on to argue that its demand for a transitional republic is really just a tactical slogan. Butthis argument is yet another self-exposure that only compounds the problem. Suddenly the goalof the revolutionary struggle is no longer to smash the old reactionary comprador-feudalimperialist-backed state and establish new democratic rule under the leadership of the proletariat,but instead to settle for some kind of democratic republic which supposedly has no clear classnature, a state which both bourgeoisie and proletariat alike will try to use. But, with classiceclectics, it is argued that this doesnt revise the heart out of the Marxist understanding of thestate because this is only a tactic! Events since 2005 demonstrate clearly that the eclectic,muddled understanding of the state reflected in this slogan (transitional republic) goes farbeyond mere tacticsand it is no surprise to find articles in Red Star (the biweekly onlinenewspaper that presents the views of the CPN[M] in English) a few years later insisting that thecurrent state in Nepal is a joint dictatorship of both the proletariat and the bourgeois class.(Red Star #15, Fall of Koirala Dynasty) This is declared to be a great theoretical innovation.But in reality there is nothing great, or innovative, about a state that is based on the old society,with new faces in high places who claim they can use that state to fulfill the interests of thepeople. In fact, this conception of the state standing apart from the class divisions in society isthe very same deception that exploiting classes always utilize to hide their class domination. Inthe communist movement as well, the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in favorof a state of the whole people, has also been a hallmark of revisionism. As with revisionistefforts of this kind in the past, the attempts in Nepal now to implement such conceptions, and the

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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tactics that go along with this, can only lead to further and further setbacks for the revolutionarycause, disarm the revolutionary forces, and masses, ideologically as well as otherwise, and setthem up for disaster. The fundamental truth, which no erroneously conceived tactics canchange, or get around, is that proletarian rule can only be established by smashing anddismantlingand not seeking to perfect, or restructurethe old, reactionary state; and theinterests of the masses of people can only be served by digging up the roots of class society,while the rule and the interests of the imperialists, and other reactionaries, can only exist and beserved by reinforcing those very roots of exploitation and oppression.In March 2008 the second major letter of the RCP,USA answered the arguments of theCPN(M) and further developed many of the themes of the RCPs previous letter (of October2005) in the context of the evolving political situation in Nepal. Through a whole course ofmaneuvers and attempts to carry out the agreements that had been reached between theCPN(M) and the other political parties, elections for the Constituent Assembly in Nepal werefinally set to take place in April. The question of a transitional republic had gone from onlybeing one of basic principle and theory, as it was in 2005, to becoming an immediate practicalquestion as well, as the whole country was preparing to go to the polls for the April 2008Constituent Assembly elections.The RCP letter of March 2008 examines the CPN(M)s call to restructure the state and arguesthat it amounts to a call to perfect the existing state machinerywhich in fact serves thereactionary classesrather than to smash the reactionary state (to borrow Marxs formulation).Numerous historical examples are drawn on, in the RCPs argument on this crucial pointbourgeois democratic revolutions in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, the 20th centuryrevolutions (or regime changes) in Russia, Iran, Spain and other countriesto show that timeand again revolutionary struggles have fallen short of liberating the oppressed because they havesettled for ridding the state machinery of obsolescent aspects, like a monarchy, that no longercorresponded to historical developmentsand/or to the needs of the reactionary classes at thetimerather than destroying the state machinery entirely and clearing the ground to establish therule of those who were exploited and oppressed in the old society.This RCP letter continues to examine why countries like Nepal, which of necessity must carryout the anti-feudal struggle (and which, in Nepal specifically, did involve uniting forces broadlyagainst the monarchy), will require a form of two stage revolution but why the first stagewhich corresponds to the achievement of bourgeois-democratic tasks, such as overthrowingfeudalism (and, again, in the case of Nepal, abolishing the monarchy)cannot be allowed to fallunder the leadership of bourgeois forces, and to result in the establishment of a bourgeoiscapitalist republic (in whatever guise and with whatever name), but instead must be led bycommunists, representing the fundamental interests of the proletariat, and must result in theestablishment of a new democratic state, consciously built as part of the world proletarianrevolution. In Nepal the capitalism that has developed under the impetus of the world imperialistsystem is intertwined with feudal forms of exploitation and oppression, and there cannot be anydemocracy of the capitalist type without the stench of feudalism. Thus, without newdemocratic revolution any half-measures will mean that the country and the masses of peoplewill not only fail to break free of -foreign domination and continuing subordination within theinternational network of imperialist relations, with all the terrible conse-quences of that, but

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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significant aspects of feudalism will also remainin reality and regardless of anyonesprofessions or intentions. Along with that, whatever progress might be made in perfecting thereactionary state machinery will only lead to more fully establishing the bourgeois republic thatLenin described as being the most suitable shell for the growth of capitalism.Here once again is the fundamental principleyes, an ABC of Marxism, and one that it hasrepeatedly proven disastrous to ignorethat breaking free of the hold of the reactionary classes,and abolishing exploitation and oppression, cannot be accomplished through some gradual(ist)approach, but only through a radical rupture: an overthrowing and breaking up of the old organsof political power, serving the old society, and the establishment of radically new organs ofpolitical rule, serving and carrying forward the radical transformation of every sphere of society,as part of the overall world proletarian revolution.As the RCPs March 2008 letter argues:One of the central political questions we raised in our debate with the CPN(M) was whether the currentstage of the struggle is for the establishment of a New Democratic republic, that is, the form of the dictatorshipof the proletariat appropriate in the conditions of Nepal, or whether the revolution must pass through theprocess of consolidating a bourgeois democratic republic. This question that we were debating in theory has,over the last two years, taken on flesh and bones. Two states had emerged in the course of the ten year-longPeoples War: the old reactionary comprador-bureaucrat-capitalist-feudal state led by the monarchy in leaguewith imperialism, and the embryonic new democratic state that had emerged in the countryside on the basis ofthe strength of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The objective question facing Nepal is which of thesestates will emerge victorious and be consolidated on a nationwide level and which of them will be defeated.The great tragedy is that the political line and muddled thinking of the comrades of the CPN(M) has to a largedegree delegitimized the revolutionary state that had emerged in the countryside and relegitimized thedictatorship of the reactionary classes linked to the world imperialist system

Indeed, the Peoples War had already succeeded in making real advances in transforming socialand economic relations in the liberated areas, on the basis of the red political power establishedthere. These changes showed in practice how it is only by clearing away the old state powerthrough new democratic revolution that it is possible to carry out basic bourgeois democratictasks, such as doing away with the caste system, making a genuine leap toward uprooting theinequality and oppression faced by women and the minority nationalities, distributing land tothe tiller, and establishing genuine national independence from imperialist domination.This last point is crucial: without a peoples army and a new democratic state led by theproletariat, it will be impossible to break free of imperialist domination. And, as the RCP letterof November 8, 2008 argues:Time and again we have seen the inseparable link in the oppressed countries between achieving thesocial emancipation of the masses and waging the struggle against imperialism.... Exactly becauseimperialism is a world system that is ever more deeply penetrating all aspects of the social and economicstructure, it is impossible for meaningful social transformation to take place without a radical rupturewith imperialism....

Switzerland of South Asia, or Base Area of Revolution?

The RCPs November 2008 letter argues sharply against the path being taken by the CPN(M),which is concentrated in its promise to make Nepal the Switzerland of South Asiaa promisethat featured prominently in the Partys election campaigning earlier that year. First, this promise isbuilt on the illusion that Nepals problems could be solved by further integration into the world

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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imperialist system (one key plank of this promise is making Nepal a hub of trade between Chinaand India), rather than by rupturing Nepal out of the system in which it has suffered generations ofdomination and the distortion of its economy and society overall, in accordance with the interestsand dictates of imperialists and other exploiters. And this is an illusion that is rapidly going up insmoke amidst the current global economic crisis, with Nepal suffering sharp rises in the prices ofbasic necessities such as energy and grain. Even more fundamentally, what does this vision have todo with communism in the first place? Switzerland is a small imperialist country that sits near thetop of the imperialist food chain, feeding off the global plunder of this parasitical system. Is this thevision that should be inspiring communistsor should it not instead be the vision that BobAvakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA, has given such emphasis to: being emancipators ofhumanity?Once again, the base areas in the Peoples War in Nepal had vividly demonstrated some of therevolutionary transformations that the masses were capable of making once they had power intheir own hands. Imagine what a contribution the establishment of a revolutionary state, even ina relatively small and poor country like Nepal, could make to breaking through the all-toowidespread view that there is no alternative in the world today to bourgeois democracy servingcapitalism and imperialism.The CPN(M) threw itself entirely into election campaigning, and against the expectations ofalmost all observers, including the RCP, it emerged from the elections as the leading party.Elated by its victory, the CPN(M) put itself at the head of a coalition government with a numberof the other main parliamentary parties.As already noted, this represented not a step towards liberation, but a step away from it, for theseelections proved in fact to be a powerful way of giving new legitimacy to the old reactionary state,which was not smashed or defeated but only perfected by the whole Constituent Assembly process.More generally, the CPN(M)s declaration that it is using the existing state in Nepal, shorn of itsmonarchical features, as a springboard for liberation is a dangerous illusion. As has beenrepeatedly stressedbut cannot be stressed too many times, given how much this is a source ofdeadly illusionsthe reactionary state is not a classless instrument that can serve the proletariat orbourgeoisie alike, depending merely on who is holding it in their hands. The state is not the sameas the government, and in particular parliamentswhich, as Lenin pointedly noted, can be readilydissolved, if the core of the ruling class finds it in its interests to do so. The state, on the other hand,is an integrated, historically evolved machinery of military and bureaucratic power that reflects,embodies and serves the dominant social and economic relations and the ruling class (or classes)that sit atop them. The idea that the machinery of the exploiting classes can be taken over as it is,or restructuredbut not smashed and dismantledand then can be used for the ends ofemancipating the oppressed, and ultimately humanity as a whole, goes against the scientificsummation of the class character of every state and of countless experiences where the exactopposite has occurred instead: those who began with revolutionary aspirations but fell into theseillusions about the state have been swallowed up time and again and transformed into upholders ofthe very system which oppresses the masses, and/or they have been ruthlessly crushed. The March2008 letter from the RCP examines the bitter experiences of the communist movement in Franceand Italy, and concludes that, once the basic framework of the bourgeois state institutions isaccepted as legitimate, then the efforts of the communists to organize the proletariat and the masses

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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to exert their interests within this framework (through both electoral and non-electoral means) hasthe objective effect of strengthening and perfecting these reactionary institutions themselves.It is no accident that one institution that has gone virtually untouched by any changes sought by theCPN(M)-led government is the Nepal Army (NA), the pillar on which the old state stands. But whilethe NA, which waged a vicious counter-revolutionary war for years, and racked up one of the worsthuman rights records in the world, still stands fully intact, the PLA has been disarmed and confinedto UN-supervised cantonments for almost three years and is now threatened with liquidation throughthe process of being integrated into the NA. All too often, revolutionaries have indulged themselvesin illusions rather than face the basic truth that Mao so incisively summed up: Without a peoplesarmy, the people have nothing. On the other hand, the reactionaries and imperialists never fail tomaintain an iron grip on this basic question of state power. While the CPN(M) constantly talks aboutthe two armies as if they occupied an equivalent status, it speaks volumes about the reality of thesituation that the idea of the NA being integrated into the PLA, instead of vice versa, is non-existentin public discourse, and in Kathmandus halls of power the only response this idea would provoke isbemused laughter.

A Compromise with Revisionism When a

Radical Break is NeededDuring the period since shortly after the CPN(M)s electoral victory, a growing number of Partycadres began to recoil at the direction that the Party had taken. They launched struggle within theParty, and a sort of opposition coalesced around some senior figures in the Party who raisedcriticisms that the Party was settling into parliamentary politics in Kathmandu and forgetting aboutcontinuing the revolution, and other serious concerns.3 This struggle culminated at a NationalConvention held in mid-November 2008. Unfortunately, what did not happen at that Conventionwas a radical break with the dominant line in the Party and a rejection and repudiation of thebourgeois democracy and eclecticism which has come to characterize the Partys line overall, andwhich had led it into the morass that had angered so many cadres.Indeed, it seems that most of the opposition forces themselves remained trapped within this sameapproach of half-way measures, centrism (trying to find a compromise position betweencommunism and revisionism) and eclecticism, and instead of a decisive struggle, wound up in aneclectic compromise (a classic case of combining two into one, as the RCPs polemicsexamine). Basic points of the two papers presented by CPN(M) Chairman Prachanda andopposition leader Kiran were combined into a single common platform. Based on this commonplatform, the Party will continue to head up a coalition government, but the Partys work willnow be carried out through a three-pronged front, consisting of the government, the ConstituentAssembly, and the street. (Even the new name they propose for the governmentPeoplesFederal Democratic National Republicreveals the eclectic resolution of this struggle.)This compromise shows how little most of the opposition leaders have understood what is wrongwith the current overall line of the CPN(M). However much one professes in words that thestreet will be principal, so long as state power continues to remain in the hands of the3

See the articles by comrades Kiran and Gaurav among others in issues of Red Star published in September to November 2008.

On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement

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reactionary classes in Nepal and their imperialist backers, what will define Nepalese society anddetermine the countrys future development will not be the street but the workings of thecapitalist-imperialist system worldwide and in Nepal. In this situation, the street can never bemore than a pressure group on parliamentary politics, to be unleashed or reined in based on theworkings of these more fundamental factors, and limited to achieving reforms within the overallreactionary framework. Even if one holds the position of Prime Minister, the rules that one willbe forced to abide by, the agreements one will have to make, and the interests one will be forcedto uphold and serve will prevent the street from being anything more than a pressure groupused to tack and negotiate.The RCP,USA letter of November 2008 notes:One of the particularities of centrism and eclecticism is its refusal to make a clear cut demarcation betweenMarxism and revisionism, but instead to try to carve out a position half way between a revolutionarycommunist ideology and politics and outright capitulation and opportunism. In Nepal it is this form of centristrevisionism that has become the greater danger, not those who unabashedly proclaim their adhesion to theideology of multiparty democracy and the glories of capitalism. The tired refrain is that there is the danger ofrevisionism or rightism on the one hand, but there is also the danger of dogmatism on the other, and that byskillfully maneuvering between these two obstacles the Party has gone from victory to victory. Or, there is therecognition in-words of fundamental principles, the ABCs of Marxism, such as the need to smash the existingstate apparatus, while the Partys actual policy goes completely contrary to this goal.

In particular, Baburam Bhattarai has been arguing openly for a long period of capitalistdevelopment in Nepal, and has been a target of dissatisfaction among broad ranks of the Partyfor some time now.4 But the greater obstacle recently is the eclecticism and half-measures thathave come to characterize the line of Party Chairman Prachanda and the forces around him, whotime and again combined verbal assurances, to the rank and file and discontented sections of theleadership, of the Partys intentions to carry the revolution through to victory while continuing tocarry out the basic revisionist line and policies advocated by Bhattarai. This fusion of two intoone is heralded as a great contribution to Marxism, under the signboard of avoiding splits, butit actually amounts to avoiding the necessary sharp, decisive struggle and rupture to afundamentally different and revolutionary line and uniting all who can be united through THATline struggle. It is becoming increasingly clear in practice that this avoiding splits, and themore general eclecticism it is part of, really means abandoning the fundamental interests of theproletariat and other oppressed masses in the name of unity with exploiting classes, their politicalrepresentatives and their ideology, and abandoning the mission of the proletariat to thoroughlysweep away imperialism and reaction in Nepal as part of advancing the world proletarianrevolution.In this situation, it was crucial, especially for those wanting to build the necessary opposition tothe revisionist line now dominant in the CPN(M), to make a radical rupture with precisely thiskind of half-stepping centrism and eclecticism and break with an orientation that was framed interms of an illusory and classless democracy, which could only mean the kind of bourgeoisdemocracy that the Party was settling into. To instead take half-measures and conciliate yet again4Bhattarai argues that Nepal must first develop the productive forces before the revolution can advance further, and that onlycapitalism can achieve this. While some compare him to Chinas Deng Xiaoping, it could be said that to invoke the theory of theproductive forces like this in Nepal, in conditions where, unlike in China, socialism has not even been achieved, is a classicexample of Marxs ironic phrase, first time tragedy, second time farce.

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with revisionism and with eclecticism means reinforcing this erroneous outlook, which had led tothe situation that had provoked the rebellion in the first place.In a situation that demanded decisively going after the causes of the illness, the oppositionwound up confining attention once again simply to the symptoms. To take just one example, theopposition recoiled at the prospect of the Party being swamped in parliamentary reformism,but persisted in hailing the April 2008 election victory as a great success. The resultingcompromise at the November National Convention was, like the April 2008 election victory,not a stepping stone towards setting the Party on a more revolutionary path, but insteadrepresented reconciliation with revisionism, taking all the anger and rebellion that had eruptedamong a significant section of the Party and once again pulling it back within the orbit of anoverall wrong line. As the RCP,USA letter of November 2008 put it, We should remindcomrades that every revisionist party always has a left whose role objectively is to provide anoutlet for the discontent of the masses and sections of the rank and file, while keeping these samesections bound to the political programme of the party leadership.Further evidence that there was no significant change in the Partys trajectory came to light almostimmediately, when in January 2009 the CPN(M) completed a process of uniting with theCommunist Party of Nepal-Unity Centre (Mashal). This latter party was the product of an earliersplit in the communist movement of Nepal before the Peoples War was launched. Indeed, splittingwith these and other revisionists had been a necessary and vital part of the process of preparing tolaunch the Peoples War in the first place. The fact that the CPN(M) has now re-united with thesedie-hard revisionists, and has hailed this as a great accomplishment on the road to uniting allNepals communists, represents a further step in putting the Peoples War, and the revolution itembodied and spearheaded, into the museum of ancient history. In fact, the Peoples War isincreasingly treated as an action that, though it legitimated the Party among the poorest sections ofsociety, has no relevance for the future.A recent issue of Red Star gave another indication of where the path that the CPN(M) is taking willlead. Issue #21 featured an article by a Red Star reporter, Roshan Kissoon, entitled Negation ofthe Negation, which took the CPN(M)s eclectics and revisionism to new depths. Kissoonsarticle repudiates the whole history of the international communist movement and the pathbreakingcontributions of its founding and leading figures, beginning with Marx. He reverses the verdict onalmost every major struggle between revolution and counter-revolution. The result of Kissoonsarticle is to effectively liquidate all dividing lines in the experience of the ICMas if nothingwhatsoever had been learned since the proletariat came onto the stage of history, as if the struggleand sacrifices of the hundreds of millions who fought heroically to wrench the beginnings of a newworld out of the grip of the capitalist exploiters was all for nought.This contempt for the achievements of the communist movement, historically andinternationally, and the lessons learned at such great cost, is in service of outright capitulation,for Kissoons conclusion is that nothing can be done in Nepal today but to build capitalism, andhe approvingly echoes a comment from Bhattarai that communism should be left to ourgrandchildren. The point, however, is that future generations will never achieve communismuntil and unless revolutionaries take the initial but decisive steps that go in the direction ofsocialism and ultimately communism. Going full steam toward capitalism will only retard and

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undermine the struggle for communism, and with regard to Nepal in particular it will meanthrowing away the great opportunity that was wrenched through the process of Peoples Warofopening the door to the socialist and communist future.It is no wonder that Kissoon reserves his greatest bile for Bob Avakian, for it is the work thatAvakian has done to rescue communism from being turned into a museum pieceand torevitalize and strengthen it as a scientific outlook and method capable of leading the masses toadvance the revolutionary struggle toward the goal of communismthat poses the greatestdanger to this brand of revisionist cynical realism. The CPN(M) itself has notyetadoptedthis kind of outright liquidationism but giving revisionists a platform to spew their venom in aParty-led newspaper, as they have done with Kissoon, is a reflection of a line that has alreadytaken the Party a long way on the road to liquidating the communist content in the Partys line.

The Stakes of This Struggle, and the Need Now to Take It Out Intothe WorldThe RCP is making these letters public at this point based on its assessment of how best to carrythe struggle forward to do whatever is possible to save the revolution in Nepal, and to assist othersaround the world in learning from this experience so as to sharpen the overall understanding of thediverging lines that are becoming evident in the international communist movement. This is notime to mince words: the revolution in Nepal has been sinking into quicksand and will not selfcorrect unless and until there is a conscious and energetic repudiation of the ideological andpolitical line that has led it to this disaster.In deciding to make these letters public, the RCP is proceeding from the bedrock understandingthat communists are not representatives of this or that nation, but of the world proletariat, andthat their cause is the cause of emancipating all humanity. Proceeding from this viewpoint,communists should pay particular attention to, and focus political and ideological support andassistance on, those struggles that offer the greatest chances for making revolutionarybreakthroughs against imperialism. The RCP therefore has viewed the growth of revisionistviews in the CPN(M) with the utmost seriousness and concern, and has worked hard to figure outhow to conduct struggle with the CPN(M) in a way that is consistent with communist principleand would offer the greatest hope for a positive outcome.Some critics have derided the RCP for its silence over Nepal up to this point. But the exchangeof views between communist parties and organizationsincluding at times sharp disagreementsover matters of principletakes place in the context of extremely complex struggle, withmonumental stakes, against ferocious enemies; this must be constantly kept in mind by anyonewho is serious about advancing this struggle. The RCP has proceeded on the basis of theunderstanding that, the work of communists and the revolutionary struggles they lead are mattersof profound importance for the masses of people, not only in the particular country immediatelyinvolved but indeed in the world as a whole and that the airing of differences has to be weighedand approached very carefully, because doing so can easily be of aid to the imperialists andreactionaries who relentlessly seek to crush and annihilate revolutionary struggles and vanguardcommunist forces. (From Stuck in the Awful Capitalist Present or Forging a Path to theCommunist Future, Response to Mike Elys Nine Letters)

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The international communist movement must be full of vigorous debate and struggle, but it is notand should not be turned into a mere debating society. It is only when the RCP had becomethoroughly convinced that it was not possible through the channels available to it to persuade theleadership of the CPN(M) to turn aside from the disastrous path it was pursuing that the decisionwas made to open up the struggle to the broad public.It is undoubtedly true that the CPN(M) has dug itself a deep hole, and it is getting deeper. To speakfrankly, it is very hard indeed for a party to extricate itself from such depths. But communism willnever be reached without communists going up against great obstacles and overcomingtremendous difficulties, in order to make unprecedented breakthroughsand this is what is calledfor today. The first thing that needs to be done is to accept the fact that the problem is the basic lineof the Party. It is the revisionism, and the centrism and eclecticism and promotion of illusions ofclassless democracy that have led the Party into the swamp, and it is a radical rupture with this thatis required. This means above all a reaffirmation of the basic principles and goals of communism,which in Nepal means carrying forwardthrough revolutionary means and not by attempting torely on, and promote, gradualist illusions and reformist schemesthe struggle to complete the newdemocratic revolution as the first step toward socialism and the final aim of communism.The comrades in Nepal are not alone in facing this challenge, but to make the necessary ruptureswill require a definite break with nationalism, empiricism and pragmatismand, as a particularexpression of that, the elevation of ones practice, with whatever successes it may have involvedup to a certain point, as beyond criticism and as more important than the fundamental principlesof communism, which are themselves the distillation and scientific synthesis of a vast range ofhuman practice and struggle, in the realm of revolution and in many other dimensions of humanthought and activity. As the November 2008 RCP Letter points out:[T]he belief that the advanced practice of the Nepal revolution has made it unnecessary to learn fromadvanced understanding from other comrades is part of the pragmatism and empiricism that has,unfortunately, been a growing part of the CPN(M) leaderships ideological orientation for some time now.Any effort to resolve the crisis in the CPN(M) only on its own terms, and on nationalist or empiricistgrounds to ignore or resist the advanced revolutionary communist understanding developing elsewhere is toseverely handicap the struggle for a correct line. In particular, we sincerely hope that the comrades of theCPN(M) will give serious attention to engaging with the body of work, method and approach, the newsynthesis, that Bob Avakian has been bringing forward.*****

This introduction and overview of the polemical exchange between the RCP,USA and the CPN(M)has only touched on some of the many important points that were raised in the Letters, includingthe relation between strategy and tactics, the international dimension of the revolution in Nepal, therelation of new democracy to carrying out bourgeois democratic tasks, the role of formaldemocracy under socialism, the CPN(M)s history, and many more. But one thing is clear: thesepolemical exchanges represent one of the most important two-line struggles that have taken placein the international communist movement in many years. Like other such major struggles, theyinvolve profound stakes and far-reaching ramifications, and they are an important school ofrevolution that can help a new generation to learn what is involved in the inevitably complexprocess of revolution and what is required to actually carry revolution through all the way tovictoryand on that basis to contribute to doing whatever is possible to save the revolution inNepal. As the RCPs March 2008 letter concluded:This very important battle is part of a greater process of rescuing the communist project in the only way

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that it can be rescued, by confronting the ideological and political questions of revolution in the 21st century,daring to examine and reexamine our precepts and understandings and forging the solution to the problems ofhumanity. Our own steps along this process have convinced us, more than ever, of the viability and necessityof the communist revolution.